Frank Film Club with Maisie Williams

This week, we are so excited to be talking about Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut - The Lost Daughter (2021). We are joined by two of the incredible producers of the film, Osnat Handelsman-Keren and Talia Kleinhendler. The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley who both play Leda at different stages of her life. A middle-aged Leda arrives for a quiet holiday on a...

We’ve got a juicy one for you this week! We’re diving further into Sean Baker’s repertoire, looking at his latest film Red Rocket (2021). Red Rocket stars Simon Rex as washed up porn star, Mikey Saber, who returns to his hometown in Texas City. He twists the arm of his ex-lover, who is technically still his wife, in order to stay with her until he can get his life back on track. As chaos ensues, M...

We're back! To kick off Series 3 and in honour of International Women’s Day we are launching with the classic film Bend It Like Beckham (2002)! Directed by Gurinder Chadha, the film stars Parminder Nagra as Jess, Keira Knightley as Jules, Archie Panjabi as Pinky and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Joe. Set in London, the film follows Jess as she navigates her ambitions to play professional football agains...

We have a juicy bonus episode for you! We’ve chosen Shiva Baby (2020) - Emma Seligman’s debut feature film. It’s a brilliant comedy set within a shiva - a Jewish mourning ritual. Danielle, played by Rachel Sennott, joins her parents at a shiva where she has an awkward encounter with her sugar daddy and her ex-girlfriend. And to top it off, we were lucky enough to speak with both Emma Seligman and...

It's the season finale! We thought we'd go out with an all-time favourite, we're talking about Little Miss Sunshine (2006) directed by Valarie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (power couple). If you don't already know the story, it's about a family of colourful characters as they pile into an old van and travel across the country to California for their daughter, Olive, to compete in a beauty pageant. If...

It's Christmas week! We've chosen Tangerine (2015) directed by Sean Baker as our Christmas film. Perhaps not the most festive but it's certainly entertaining. And we couldn't quite bring ourselves to analyse The Holiday. Tangerine is the story of sex worker, Sin-Dee and her best friend, Alexandra, as they track down Sin-Dee's boyfriend/pimp in Santa Monica & Highland, LA, after hearing that he...

This week we're talking about Zola (2020) directed by Janicza Bravo. " Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense. ” If you haven't already seen this film then go over to a streaming site and watch it. Based on a series of Tweets, this pretty-much-true story is about a waitress who gets seduced into a trip to Florida to do some danc...

This week we're talking about Promising Young Woman (2020) written and directed by Emerald Fennell. It's a story about a young woman haunted by a tragedy in her past as she takes revenge on the predatory men who fall into her trap. We discuss genre, our society and much more. This film won a lot of awards and had a lot of hype last year so we have been very excited to watch and chat about it. It w...

This week we're talking about The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) written and directed by the wonderful Radha Blank. Radha, a woman of many talents, also stars in the film and it's loosely based on her own life story as she becomes a rapper at age 40. If you haven't seen this film yet... go and watch it! It's hilarious, brutally honest and it's got a great soundtrack. Enjoy! The Forty-Year-Old-Versi...

Join us this week to talk about Celine Sciamma's new film Petite Maman (2021). A story about an 8-year-old girl, Nelly, who meets a girl her age as she's building a treehouse in the woods. The girl turns out to be Nelly's mother but at a younger age. It's a mother/daughter tale like we've never seen before and to top it off, we got to talk to Céline Sciamma herself! We tried to keep our cool. Peti...

We're talking about Sound of Metal (2019) directed by Darius Marder. It's a story about a heavy metal drummer, Ruben played by Riz Ahmed, who begins to rapidly lose his hearing. It's an incredible film and the stories behind making it made are pretty incredible too. We chat to one of the producers of the film, Sacha Ben Harroche, about the process of getting the film made... what a journey. Come a...

Maisie is introducing us to the world of Studio Ghibli this week! We're watching Ponyo (2008) directed by Hayao Miyazaki. If you haven't watched much anime before, then this is a great place to start, if you have, then why not give it a re-watch? It's a feast for the eyes. We chat about the brilliant female characters, the environment and whether it should be watched with subtitles or dubbed. We a...

This week we're talking about Limbo (2020), a British indie film written and directed by Ben Sharrock. It's a story about a Syrian musician, Omar, who is seeking asylum in the UK on a (very cold) Scottish island. He and his three housemates take cultural awareness classes and wait in a near-empty house for their asylum claims to be processed. We chat about the deadpan humour, the characters and th...

It's nearly Halloween! So time for some horror. We're talking about Midsommar (2019) written and directed by Ari Aster. We discuss genre (is this even a horror?!), A24 and much more. We answer questions from you guys and we also have our first ever In The Club guest... Florence Pugh! We were lucky enough to ask her some questions about the filming process, which sounds like it was pretty bonkers....

The first episode of series 2 is here! Maisie is hosting this week and we're chatting about the one and only Legally Blonde (2001) directed by Robert Luketic. It was recently the film's 20th anniversary so it only felt right. We chat about how the film was, in many ways, ahead of its time and overall, just a great watch. In our new In The Club section, we discuss some thoughts from you guys! To be...