After being shot in 2008 and then being Golden Globe nominated for Best Actress and winning an NAACP Image Award for the same category four years ago, the psychological, mind-bending drama Frankie & Alice, starring Oscar winner Halle Berry, Stellan Skarsgard, Matt Frewer, Phylicia Rashad, and Chandra Wilson is finally hitting theaters, but while Berry gives in a strong and compelling performance, the film would have been suited to the land of cable TV and VOD.
Directed by Geoffrey Sax, Halle Berry stars as an go-go dancer named Frankie, who while on the job experiences some mental breakdown and also gets killed in traffic. Placed in an institution and under the care of Dr. Oswald (Stellan Skarsgard), Frankie has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). On minute she’s herself and the next she’s battling split personalities, a seven-year-old child named “Genius” and a Southern white racist woman named “Alice.”
Going home, Frankie’s mom (Rashad) looks worried as does her sister (Wilson). Through flashbacks, Oswald is looking to unlock the secrets in Frankie’s mind that has kept her from leading a normal life. As Frankie looks to get better, Alice comes out and doesn’t want to be handled or told what to do.
There’s no reason why this film was sitting on the shelf for this long. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s also not meant for theaters either. Outside of the X-Men films, this is Berry’s biggest role since 2007’s Things We Lost In The Fire and she also served as a producer on the film. Unfortunately, the script had some flaws that go unexplained and the film doesn’t give much depth to the subject matter. Nevertheless, Berry is strong and had it played on TV, it would have merit at least some Emmy talk.
Trailer
