John - an ordinary office worker who loves music but can't always write good songs.
By chance, he met the Band of Seriforbo and began playing keyboards inside.
On the left is John, and the whole band has five people besides him.
On the right is Dan, who has a relatively good relationship with John, occasionally chats with him about Frank and the band, and seems normal but actually has a very serious mental illness.
The two on the left and right were bassist Baroque and drummer Nana, both of whom were very unhappy with John's addition, and Baroque always attacked John directly with words. Nana's character, Carla Azar, is a true drummer herself, and when she learned that her idol, Fa shark, was recruiting actors for a new movie, she auditioned for the role and managed to get the role.
The girl in the second left is Claire, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Maggie's maverick aura, which fits with the arrogant and grumpy personality of Claire in the film, adds a touch of color to this grotesque band.
In the middle is the protagonist of the whole movie and the center of the band , Frank, who is a talented genius who can write good music at any time and in any way. Frank wore this huge hood all the time, even when he was bathing and sleeping, and no one had seen him for his true face, but he was kind at heart, tolerant of those around him, and serious about music.
It's a musical about the band, but it doesn't talk about music or the rise and fall of the band.
The relationship between Claire and Frank in the film is elusive, it is impossible to distinguish between friendship and love, and the only thing that is beyond doubt is that Claire is the person who loves Frank the most. She knows that Frank has a rare talent, but she knows even more that his special difficulty is accepted by everyone, so she has been protecting Frank, and Frank also said that he felt that Claire did not care about people's eyes.
For John's addition, Claire described him as nothing more than a finger following the instructions to play the keyboard.
When she learned that John had taken a video of their daily routine and tweeted it, she called it surveillance.
When the band goes to the sxsw festival, she discovers Something strange about Frank and takes him out alone at night to persuade him, hoping that Frank will leave with her.
Claire opposes all external factors that could harm Frank and strives to create a warm "fairy tale world" for him.
The world is troubled, and if someone can give us the courage to boldly retain our own eccentricities, we really can't think of any better words to describe it than "fairy tales".
Frank said John had brought something precious to them, so he invited him and the band to go to Winterno, Ireland, to make an album. For the next year or so, they stayed in a cabin, working 14 hours a day.
Frank wanted everyone to start from scratch and created a new score system and a strict exercise system. They design their own instruments, record special sounds, and everything is different from others.
John felt that Frank's talent was related to his origins, such as his unhappy childhood and mental illness, which he believed was the inspiration for Frank. So he decided to think like Frank and push himself to the limit.
John thinks he's gradually integrated into the band, finding his own brutal childhood and mental hospital in Winterno.
When he insisted on performing at the sxsw festival, the band members except Frank left, and the two had to go to the stage to perform an unplugged performance without band accompaniment.
John sang the song he had written, while Frank fell to the floor and said only "This song is garbage".
Because the money had run out and there was no performance, and Frank had been wearing a hood that would stink, John finally couldn't stand it and began to dislike him and wanted to forcibly take off his hood. Frank rushed out, and after being hit by a car, his hood cracked into several pieces, so he fled alone.
Fortunately, John later found him and went to Frank's house to see his true face.
He wasn't the ugly john had imagined, nor did he live in the remote countryside.
But after taking off his hood, he did change, becoming silent and lonely, and he couldn't even create.
John took him to Claire's tavern where they were, and Frank, who was standing under the stage, bowed his head and whispered his impressions of the tavern, Baroque handed him the microphone, and everyone began to accompany him, and Frank improvised a song.
"The washroom was so bad it was time to clean. The bad smell of cigarettes and the smell of urine, I love you guys. The prodigal son wants to turn back and go back to the place where we played together, I love you guys. Bad smelling beer, bloated crowds. The smoke of the cowboys, the sequined mountain woman, I love you. Please hold me, trembling fingers, itchy pants, I love you guys. ”
John, who was listening to the song, suddenly understood that he had never been integrated into the band, and everything was self-made and sentimental, so he quietly left.
When I look back at the details of the movie, I find that John attaches great importance to tweeting because it will bring attention to himself; when Frank falls on the stage, he first looks at the beautiful girl backstage and thinks it makes him very embarrassed; when he finds Frank, the most important thing he cares about is whether he has continued to create.
John always thought that he could one day become a genius by being close to genius and imitating genius, so he tried to think like Frank, but finally found that he could never do it. Because he only wanted to be famous, nothing else mattered to him, and he didn't even understand the meaning of friends.
In addition to John, there is the aforementioned Dan, both of whom are frankly eager to succeed.
Dan differs from John in that he believes that Frank's talents have no boundaries, that there can only be one Frank in this world, and that he himself can never be him.
The day after the album was recorded, Dan hanged himself, dressed in Frank's clothes and wearing his hood, and finally "became" Frank in this way.
Dan represents the kind of person who is the opposite of John, eager to succeed, but constantly telling himself that it is impossible.
So when he faced Frank's success, he couldn't walk away as freely as John did, but chose to give up on himself and only seek self-satisfaction.
The Internet says that Frank has many maverick musicians, such as Daniel Hohnston, Captain Beefheart, etc., but why is he not each of us?
It embraces our weird thoughts and allows everyone to see the happy life of Frank, the weirdo. This is the consummation of a fantasy, and it is the expectation of many people at the moment.
We are all, as Frank says, "little squirrels hiding in the forest," hoping to be accepted and liked by the world. Like before, Frank said that he was inspired by John to think of a favorite song, but everyone thought it was bad, and only Claire said to him, "Everyone will love it to death."