The great story about Frank was ruined by standard middle class angst about new technology

Rating: 3/10 (18 May 2014)

'Frank' is a great movie about the creative process. It's great at the beginning and end. It is different to other band films like "Walk the line" not only because of Frank but also because it won't follow the classical dramatic curves of many other more conventional music films. Frank as a character and his flaws made me guessing what's happening at the end and to characterise Frank as a real person with real problems kept me going to the end.
However the film left a bad aftertaste with me how stupid the 20-something keyboarder was characterised. If I were that age I would see that film as a slap in my face. Just because I tweet and am on YouTube I'm not completely brain dead. I found especially the scenes at SXSW hard to watch. It was unnecessary to create the main character as such an idiot and ultimately he stands for his generation in this film. Also the lesson he learns at the end perpetuates what the establishment wants to hammer home to the youth which brings me to the next paragraph.
In more general terms the films conveys a 70s nostalgia against the YouTube / Facebook generation. In this respect it is just a bit more sophisticated than recent clips on social media (!) that in the old days everything was better because we talked to each other. In this film it was a band recording avantgarde music on analogue tape with loads of retro equipment from the "good old" times while the 20 something was posting videos on YouTube, tweeted it to the world -- and this was of course evil. To emphasise the other band members' goodness they had no idea about social media at all and not even noticed that they were filmed. Overall a cheap division to make a point which is as old as the established class: new media is evil and the youth needs to learn to stay away from it.