Saint Frances

Bridget is thirty four, waits tables, and nothing in her life has settled. At the start of the summer she finds she is pregnant and has an abortion. In the same days she gets a new job: looking after a wealthy family's six year old daughter for the summer. Frances is a difficult child and does not take to people easily. There is another situation in the house: one of the child's mothers has recently given birth and is not recovering. Bridget deals with her own bleeding, her job and this household at once. Alex Thompson directs. Kelly O'Sullivan wrote the screenplay and plays the lead; Ramona Edith Williams plays Frances. The film was shown at SXSW and won an audience award. What is most striking is that it does not hide the body; bleeding, milk, pads and the period after birth are shown directly, and the film does not make drama of them. The abortion is at the centre of the narrative and is not built as a crisis; the character's decision is not made a matter for debate. The strand on postpartum depression is the hardest part and the narrative offers no resolution there. The relationship between Bridget and the child is built slowly and the film does not tie it to an emotional conversion. It is a small budget independent production, shot in Chicago. Who it is for: viewers who like independent American comedy drama. Who it is not for: some scenes are explicit, little happens, and the narrative deliberately leaves things unresolved.