A gimmicky device of a wrong-notioned way to find success in the music industry

Rating: 6/10 (10 May 2015)

One major gimmick of Irish director Lenny Abrahamson's music drama-comedy FRANK is its star Michael Fassbender (the "it" actor presently) will only appear with a giant paper mask containing his head and never reveal himself in the entire film, but spoiler alert! It turns out that Lenny cannot keep the promise and allow Fassbender's sex appeal (his face to be more accurate) to go untapped and be concealed inside that doll head. So in the last ten minutes, when our eccentric titular protagonist Frank (Fassbender) finally reveals himself without his shield to the outside world, a mixed feeling arises, admittedly Fassbender is my favourite actor among his generation, it is a surprise to see his visage (thanks to the deceptive publicity stunt) in the climax scenes of the film, a pathos-exuding music performance of the song I LOVE YOU ALL, written by the composer Stephen Rednecks. However at the same time, a part of me wishes Lenny Abrahamson could have had the guts to let Frank do the scenes with his mask on, keep the eccentricity running until the last drop.
Jon (Gleeson), a young wannabe musician is audience's proxy in the film, who has by chance been recruited as the new keyboard of the experimental band Soronprfbs, where Frank is the band-leader, and Don (McNair) is the manager, with band-mates Clara (Gyllenhaal), Nana (Azar) and Baraque (Civil). The film is at its best when the whole band is retreated to a remote cabin in Ireland in order to record a new album, Jon is the wide-eyed newcomer tries very hard to blend into the quirky coterie, while others are generally in their wheelhouse to prepare themselves for inspiration and creativity, with occasional financial problem reminds them everything has a due date. Jon covertly records the videos of their daily activities through his twitter account, and Frank's idiosyncrasy (or maybe their unorthodox music) actually generates considerable cyber fandom for the band and they get an invitation to play in the upcoming SWSX festival.
Thus Jon takes it as a springboard for the band to meet a bigger audience, which is unfortunately not in accord with the ideology of other band members, particularly Clara, whose inexplicable hostility towards Jon is invariably present ever since their first eye- contact, it is the essential contradiction between an esoteric artist and a mediocre songwriter, "mediocre" is always the original sin for those pretentious artists. Then Frank, apart from his bizarre habits, during the recording session at least, he seems to a normal chap, with clear articulation and occasional humour to mentor other people and give them life guidance. But after a tragic turn (with a comical joke on ashes), Frank and his band is about to play live in USA in front of their potential groupies-to-be, but interior strife plays havoc on their solidarity, eventually the performance (with only Frank and Jon) is a fiasco, and both Jon and audience realise that for sure Frank has a bigger problem than his peculiarity suggests.
The mystery unravels during Jon's visit to Frank's parents when his mask is finally taken off, we are obliged to see Frank as a scarred human being, true to his slow-witted ungainliness. While Jon, the innocuous young man, who wastes all his inherited money from his grandpa on the band, has gotten a stab on the leg and run over by a car, everything he hopes ends up to be a pipe dream just because no one informs him that his way to success is not the right way for Frank, the selfishness of other band members cannot be left without feeling chafing.
That said, Maggie Gyllenhaal's fiery aggressiveness is quite enjoyable to watch, no sympathy needs to be squandered on her and she successfully pulls off a sort of characteristic nonconformism in constant begrudging of die-hard idolatry which she never gets. In any case, the film is too wacky and half-minded to convince us with Frank's talent in this line of business which supposes to have some leverage to reckon on and what every other musician should feel envious of, instead one cannot help but feeling sorry for Jon, I doubt this would be the initial response Lenny Abrahamson had envisioned from his audience in the first place, or as simple as that sometimes attention-grabbing oddity can be easily mistaken as talent, especially in our age, it can happen in a daily basis.