Saint Frances

At 34, Bridget's (Kelly O'Sullivan) life could look a little more orderly: The (no longer quite) young woman dropped out of writing school after two semesters. A steady partner is not in sight, nor is a goal-oriented career towards becoming a writer. The temporary job as a waitress is frustrating, the unwanted pregnancy with a much younger man is unsettling, and the option of an abortion is more than just on the table. Then one day Bridget is offered a summer job as a nanny for her six-year-old daughter Frances (Ramona Edith Williams) by a lesbian couple so that the two mothers can look after their newborn. Bridget has no idea about childcare, but her heart is in the right place and she has all sorts of ideas on how to win Frances' trust and give her and herself new courage... Director Alex Thompson's debut film, for which his partner Kelly O'Sullivan (who also plays the lead role of Bridget in the film) wrote the screenplay, is captivating, refreshingly true to life and full of warm-heartedness. The Audience Award at the South by Southwest Festival was one of the many honors and awards that this emotional coming of age story about an aimless representative of Generation Y was able to win. In addition to the well-developed supporting characters, the performance of the young child actress Ramona Edith Williams as the delightfully bright “Saint Frances” - derived from St. Francis of Assisi - is also phenomenal. "Increasingly in the world of literature we’ve seen the rising popularity of young female authors exploring the complexities of contemporary womanhood through personal essays or novels that feel more open and honest than maybe has been encouraged previously. In Saint Frances, O’Sullivan leans into personal experiences, primarily abortion, lapsed Catholicism and the question of whether motherhood is something she wants at this time in her life. [...] Nothing in Saint Frances is a particularly big deal. Yes, there’s drama, but it’s all presented in a very matter of fact way. [...] This breeziness, though, should not be misread as being uncaring or glib. Yes, Saint Frances doesn’t dwell on matters too heavily, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t deft in providing small vignettes on some much broader topics, like breastfeeding, postnatal depression, the mental health struggles of a parent who isn’t the primary carer, the impact a new sibling can have on a child and the fact that some women (particularly those with Catholic guilt) still rely on pulling out as a method of contraception. As with Desirée Akhavan’s Appropriate Behaviour, Saint Frances allows women to be unjudged – it celebrates who they are, warts and all. There’s humour, there are tears, there are poor decisions with creepy guitar teachers, but, in the end, there’s really just 70 trillion cells that, if they were given the choice, were happy to be born. Only in seeing films like this and reading books by women who go through and question what we might do in such a situation, do we begin to realise that we aren’t so alone in our own uncertainties." (Liz Seabrook, in: Little White Lies, lwlies.com)