Frank....

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2014)

Frank is a testament to everything that both good and bad about music and it's experimental nature. On the one hand its a movie about learning through life and death how music can bring about amazing memories and life experiences. On the other hand it's movie about utter insanity and the cost of ones own well-being just to make a record and spend time with some truly whacked out people.
As someone who has played an instrument in the past, and had friends in bands, and even had my own solo project, it's insulting to a degree to see a movie play up how true creativity and amazing music comes from places deep within or from people who have some sort of mental illness/overwhelming life problems.
To be fair to the movie however, perhaps making it about the opposite wouldn't have made it as interesting or dramatic, but some people just have a gift for music and don't need to be disturbed to send a great message; and while the film tries to forward our understand of Fassbender's character actually being limited by his own inherent mental illness rather than gifted by it, the band on a whole still comes off as pretentious and difficult, and Frank is about the only truly likable character in the film.
I know the film is not trying to be insulting, but given the limited amount of music based movies out there, it would be nice to see one that doesn't use insanity, drugs, or bad life experiences as the reasons most great music has been written.
Aside from those complains, what the movie does get right is in its unfolding of said dramas. It's so crazy that it's entertaining enough just to see if everyone is actually going to make it out of the movie in one piece.
Frank is not the easiest movie to speak of, given it's perhaps best watched to truly understand, and while I feel this review is more of a generalization of how easy it is to both love and hate it, perhaps that's it's genius.
If you don't finish watching this movie and have some mixed feelings about it, then I don't think it's done it's job. Frank is so deep in both it's simplicity and complexity that its somehow equally easy and hard to recommend, and that should give you every reason to watch it; music fan or not.