Frances - Plot

Plot

Born in Seattle, Washington, Frances Elena Farmer is a rebel from a young age, winning a high school award by writing an essay called "God Dies" in 1931. Later that decade, she becomes controversial again when she wins (and accepts) an all-expenses-paid trip to the USSR in 1935. Determined to become an actress, Frances is equally determined not to play the Hollywood game: she refuses to acquiesce to publicity stunts, and insists upon appearing on screen without makeup. Her defiance attracts the attention of Broadway playwright Clifford Odets, who convinces Frances that her future rests with the Group Theatre.

But once she leaves Hollywood for New York City, Frances learns to her chagrin that the Group Theatre intends to exploit her fame in order to draw in customers. Her desperate attempts to restart her film career, combined with her increasing dependence on alcohol and the pressures brought to bear by her mother, result in a complete nervous breakdown. While institutionalized during the 1940s, Frances is abused by the powers-that-be: she is forced to undergo insulin and electroshock, is beaten cruelly, and periodically raped by the male orderlies and visiting soldiers and eventually involuntarily lobotomized.

Frances is released in the custody of her mother in 1950, who persists in browbeating her daughter until Frances discovers the legal means to break away. The film comes to a climax when Frances is feted by the network program This Is Your Life. When asked about her alcoholism and mental illness, Farmer said she had never believed she was mentally ill. She commented, "if a person is treated like a patient, they are apt to act like one." The film ends with Frances Farmer walking down the street with Harry York. Ending lines state that Frances Farmer spent 1958 to 1964 as host of a local TV program (Frances Farmer Presents) in Indianapolis, Indiana, dying of esophageal cancer on August 1, 1970 at age 56.