My mind usually doesn’t wander during screenings, even during screenings of bad movies. After all, the only enjoyable thing about a bad movie is anticipating how it will get worse. But when it comes to Franny, writer/director Andrew Renzi‘s directorial debut, my mind went all over the place during the screening. This is because I kept trying to guess which clever twists were coming up in the film. I figured that something had to hit hard because Tribeca selected the movie as part of its narrative competition. As it turns out, there is no clever twist to Franny. It’s about as on-the-surface as a movie gets, which makes the entire movie extremely disappointing.
Franny (Richard Gere) is an eccentric Philadelphia millionaire who founded a hospital. He feels responsible for the deaths of his two best friends in a car crash, and he hopes he can make it up to their daughter Olivia (Dakota Fanning), who is now pregnant and married to Luke (Theo James), a doctor fresh out of med school. Franny hires Luke to work at his hospital and immediately inserts himself into the lives of the young couple because he is intent on recreating his friendship with Olivia’s parents with Olivia and Luke in order to recover from the pain he’s still feeling from the deaths of his best friends. At first Olivia and Luke are just slightly uncomfortable around Franny, but gradually they realize that he is not just clingy, he’s deeply damaged and desperately needs help.
Franny begins as something along the lines of What About Bob? — comedy about an eccentric man who won’t leave a family alone. But even though it becomes a much darker turn with the Franny character. Problem is, Franny’s problems aren’t all that compelling. I can only assume many scenes featuring Franny and his best friends were left on the cutting room floor, because it isn’t clear why this friendship was so deep and emotionally moving. Frequently in the film Franny remarks about how amazing their friendship was, but the film barely demonstrates this with flashbacks. The audience needs to be shown why this was significant, not just told.
I also think a chunk of Fanning’s scenes had to have been cut too. She does little more than stand around and be pregnant, which is pretty pointless. James is fine, but his character only exists to be a foil for Franny’s over-generosity. Obviously the star here is supposed to be Gere, and while he is clearly the best thing about the film he’s a good character in search of a much better story. In particular, the final third is essentially all sunshine and roses in a way that just isn’t believable. Prior to that there are just far too many repetitive scenes of Gere writhing in his agony. Did Mel Gibson direct these scenes?
Franny might get raves for Gere’s performance, but it’s an uneven movie in every sense of the word. Emotional pain has been explored in countless films much more effectively, and Franny just doesn’t pull it off. Renzi’s film comes off as woefully naive as a whole, and I think it needed a lot more time in the editing room before it was ready for festivals.
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