This director really is like a low rent ken Loach/mike Leigh. Unfortunately, FRAN, has none of the cinematic prowess or complex politics that make the English masters rise above the kitchen sink.

The film is nothing more than TELEVISION drama. Turgid script, stolid story arc, overwrought drama. The characters speak their truth in a way that is unrealistic and terribly daytime television.

The writer aims so hard to invest complex stakes in the story that the characters are forced (like puppets) to react dramatically to the events. Because of this reliance on the motivating stakes of the story, the characters have no internal world. And certainly the cinematic world created is nothing short of ordinary.

Unfortunate that the creators of this stinker are now at the helm of deciding the future of Australian cinema. Perhaps therein lies the problem with the sort of scripts and directors being encouraged by Australian funding bodies.