On the heels of watching Margot at the Wedding, another Baumbach film, this might not have been the best timing since I kept thinking Frances often acted like the characters in the Margot film. Difference was I liked Frances, she made sense to me.

Two women, Frances and her best friend Sophie have the best relationship. It is like that once, maybe twice in a lifetime connection you make, usually when you’re young, in your late teens or so, when that person walks into your life, a stranger you’ve known them forever and the level of comfort you experience while in their presence is like nothing else you have or will know from another person. Unfortunately with two straight women it will inevitably suffer from the introduction of man/men who foist their rules and regulations and demand upon one of the two women friends who will with doubt and reluctance move the players in her life around, shifting her girl friend for whatever man succeeds at convincing her he’s a better idea.

I kept hoping – lightly because realistically I knew it could not happen – that Frances and Sophie would realize they loved each other in a way that meant it would be just the two of them; they’d grow intimate and the friendship would be complete without the need for a male interloper. Why couldn’t they be lesbians? Then there would be no need for Adam Driver or abrupt moves that threw the friendship into dark separate times. What happens to straight women friendships seems so inevitable and yet on so many levels unnecessary.

The end reveals to the viewer why “Ha” follows Frances’ first name. It’s silly, almost insignificant. But for me, I kept hoping they’d fall in love and live happily ever after. HA! was I fooled.