Frankie and Alice

While the topic of Schizophrenia is a serious one that warrants discussion, (especially in African American culture where mental disorders are largely unexposed, hidden or ignored), Frankie and Alice takes the topic, shows it to us through a beautiful vessel (Halle Berry) but fails in impressing upon us anything outside of the fact that this is a dull movie that never seems to get where it’s going. The use of race as a driving tool behind the extremely varying personalities within Frankie’s head was an interesting twist and seeing Halle whimper in one moment to becoming an elitist bitch in the next was scary.

It’s All About Miss Halle Berry

Let’s talk a bit about Halle, I mean, we may as well being that she is the focal point from beginning to end as she goes from stripper, to loving daughter, to patient. The role of Frankie called for someone who has the range to carry out many personalities, facial expressions, voice changes and moods within the same scene on more than one occasion. Halle seemed a good fit for this having seen her play a crack head in Jungle Fever, a lady in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, and a desperate mother in Monster’s Ball. While her acting can seem questionable in certain roles, one cannot deny that Halle has had enough experience playing multiple personalities on the big screen. All of that being said, she absolutely blew me away in the scenes where Frankie becomes Genius or Alice. The scenes in the beginning however did not impress me – Frankie is a stripper and knowing a thing or two about strip clubs, I found the scenes to be poorly shot, silly and a huge distraction from the movie’s main point. There was too much emphasis placed on these scenes, one having Frankie interrupt coitus to assume the role of Alice, hurting her lover and running out into the streets to  lay in traffic. This made absolutely no sense and by the time the movie really gets to it’s point, you are left wondering what it is aiming to accomplish.

As I mentioned the racial portions of Frankie and Alice in the beginning, you get a bit more of this feeling whenever Frankie encounters white people. It is the 70′s and her flashbacks are to the 50′s and 60′s (I assume) where she did housework for white people and eventually fell in love with the son of the people she worked for. The personalities within Frankie vary heavily, one being a genius child who can solve crosswords in minutes, and another being an old racist, conservative white woman who goes by the name Alice. Halle does a good job of flipping them on and off naturally, to where it doesn’t seem cartoonish like many other actors who have portrayed people with this disorder have been. Frankie is sexy, loves Ding Dongs (the chocolate cakes), is a free spirit and has a thing for smoking weed. Alice on the other hand is a stick in the mud, prudish, judgmental and ridiculously old school in her behavior. Having those two extremes in one woman was a mess to watch.

The plot of Frankie and Alice is simple as it details the work of a doctor named Oz and his patience and dedication to the helping of a street woman named Frankie deal with her Schizophrenia in pursuit of a normal and happy life. Stellan Skarsgard does a helluva job as Frankie’s psychiatrist, and Phylicia Rashad who is a familiar face to everyone, plays Frankie’s loving mother. While I did not enjoy the way this movie played out, I will say that it is a good reminder as to why we love Halle Berry’s work. She is the shining star of this film and I would urge fans and the curious alike to check it out and judge for yourself.