User reviews

Well i had heard little and nothing about this flick and only finding out about it after i saw that Halle Berry was nominated for a golden globe and reading the review and synopsis to this hidden away little flick and found out it was a true life case of a woman with split personality disorder. Halle plays a stripper named Frankie whose little mood swings have all but frightened the crap out of her coworkers and boss. It turns out these mood swings are a lot more serious and turn out to be s.p.d. Frankie has two others sharing her tired little body, one a frightened but smart as a whip 9yr old girl who her psychiatrist Dr. Oz (Stellan Skarsgard) names genius and an racist white woman named Alice. As the movie rolls along we find out that their is a lot of history that inspired Frankie to take on these alter persona's and can be triggered by something as simple as a song on the radio. An overall good film that lot of reviewers and critics have been calling a Sybil rip off ( I don't call it that but the mental illness is the same thats for sure) Berry's nomination for the golden globe failed and wasn't won as it went to Natalie Portman's performance in Black Swan (another acting job that was well deserved of the win) however she once again pulled off a solid job along with a stellar performance in this film.

I did not realize that Frankie and Alice was a 2010 film until I looked it up at IMDb. Although, I did notice while viewing the film that Halle looked incredible and youthful as the lead character in the title role of Frankie. This is the second time that Ms. Berry has been on screen as an exotic dancer, she was less memorable in that short lived role in The Last Boyscout. Frankie Murdock (Halle Berry) comes across as someone who knows what she has to do to survive her circumstances how to pick a mark to get paid and even hands out vocational advice to coworkers. We find out however, through her erratic behavior it is revealed that she is not as well put together as she first seems. I knew from the trailer that the film dealt with multiple personality disorder or whatever is the current clinical name for split personalities, so the film The Three Faces of Eve came to mind as I attentively watched the story unfold. Through a series of flashbacks we see Frankie as a child and a young woman and eventually learn and understand the root of her mental illness as she undergoes treatment with Dr. Oz (Stellan Skarsgard). I would love to see Mr. Skarsgard step outside of his character, he has this Zoolander approach to acting, no matter what persona he is portraying it's always the same look. Ms. Berry on the other hand was on point she was emotionally engaging, showing a range that was both compelling and evoked compassion for what her character had endured. Her personality was splintered; her experiences caused her coping mechanisms into overdrive. Halle Berry proves that the title of 'Oscar winner' is well deserved. She played the role very convincingly with Oz and against the other key characters in the film her mother Edna (Phylicia Rashad) and her sister Maxine (Miranda Bailey oops, I mean Chandra Wilson). I enjoyed this story because it was interesting and not a new construct, it was nice to see the bad guy in the usual places, but to find a completely unexpected bad guy in this film was bittersweet. The first half hour or so became a bit annoying with all the jumping around, but not enough to reduce the entertainment value.

Great acting by Halle Barry. The only thing keeping this from being a 10, for me, is that it misleads people as to the cause of Dissociative Identity Disorders. DID is caused by severe abuse at an extremely early age, generally before the age of 5. It becomes a coping mechanism that is used later in life when further trauma is experienced. Likely that is what happened and the early years of Frankie's life were simply left out of the story. An explanation should have been added.

We enjoyed the movie and acting of the beautiful and talented Ms Berry. The quality cast gave additional strong support.

After viewing the movie I tried to find more about the primary characters, Francine L. Murdoch (Frankie) and Psychiatrist Joseph Oswald (noted as now deceased in the movie). I found nothing. Just quotes from the original film source disseminated on various sites. No interviews with Frankie, no photos, no publications by Dr. Oswald, no autobiographies or biographies. Nothing.

In her interviews for the film Ms. Berry also appears to offer conflicting information about her actual interactions with Frankie...

1. NPR Interview (December 31, 2010): Ms. BERRY: "I did meet the real Frankie and Alice, but I didn't meet her until after the process was over. We talked to her, and our writers interviewed her, but the real Frankie didn't remember much as the movie will suggest. So my research was more reading books on the subject. And I actually met a doctor that was willing to answer all of my questions, and he actually allowed me to see hours and hours of real tape of real patients in the therapeutic process going through all of their multiples and struggling with bringing them all together..."

2. NAMI (National Allicance on Mental Illness): Ms BERRY:"Initially, it (preparing for the role) was through meeting the real woman that the story is modeled after, Frankie. She was my greatest source of information and inspiration; I wanted to protect her and her story. I wanted to understand and portray her stories of frustration and fear. I felt responsible for making sure that these stories were addressed in the movie. I also did basic reading on DID and mental illness—but most of my understanding and inspiration came from Frankie's life and her story; the personal story is the best source. And finally, Dr. Oz, her doctor, had transcripts as well that spoke to his feelings. I was able to secure some videotapes of health care providers who have worked with and helped people with DID in their recovery."

So, what is the real story? Hopefully someone with more resources will discover the real Frankie Murdock or Dr. Joseph Oswald. This would be the perfect follow up to a brave and inspiring film

Review: I quite enjoyed this interesting movie about a woman who has multiple personalities. One minute she's a stripper in a club who takes drugs and enjoys partying, then the next minute she is a intelligent Southern woman whose a white racist, even though she is black. She also has another personality called Genius whose a 7 year old girl, but she doesn't know how to control her alter egos so she seeks help from a psychotherapist who is interested in her case. As the movie is based around the 70's, they didn't have the different methods of dealing with this kind of illness so a lot of people just put it down to her being crazy. It didn't help that her main personality, Frankie, was a party animal and she smoked dope, but when she finally faces her problems, with the help of her doctor, they finally work out that her many personalities are down to an episode in her past. I honestly wasn't expecting that much from this movie because I hadn't heard of it before and Hall Berry hasn't really made anything that promising lately, but it's very well written and the fact that it's based on true events makes the concept interesting. The acting is top form from Hallen Berry and the chemistry between doctor and patient is brilliant. I did have a problem with the way that Berry switched into her different personalities because it seemed to happened out of the blue, but that's just me being picky. Anyway, I personally think that it deserved more money at the box office because of the effort that was put it from the actors and the emotional storyline. Watchable!

Round-Up: Halle Berry got hit with the Oscar bug, by coming out with a lot of dud movies after she had received her award. From the strange Cloud Atlas and the terrible Dark Tide and Catwoman, her career has been really gone downhill lately. Her saving grace has to be the role as Storm in the X-Men movies and she has now turned to TV with the series Extant which has got mixed reviews. At the age of 48, she still looks great but she really has to think before she picks her next roles. Stellan Skarsgard seems to be making the right choices as the professor in the Avengers and Thor franchise and he has also put in great performances in the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the Nyphomaniac movies. Together they both worked well in this film but its another one of those movies that didn't get a big cash injection from the studio. 

Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $700,000

I recommend this movie to people who are into their deep dramas about a woman who suffers with multiple personalities and seeks help from a psychotherapist. 6/10

Frankie (Halle Berry) is a go-go dancer who is struggling with multiple personality disorder (and does her best to try and hide it from her friends and employers). However, one such outburst lands Frankie in jail and in order to avoid jail-time she voluntarily checks herself into a psychiatric hospital. Once there she decides to work with psychotherapist Oz (Stellan Skarsgard)in order to try to gain an understanding of the inner ghosts that haunt her.

As well as being the leading actress in this film Halle Berry is also one of the producers so this project clearly meant quite a lot to her - this is perhaps reflected in her performance here and I could see that she really gave this her all. The story is reasonably interesting and the film is well-paced, if not particularly well-structured. So on the one hand, you get a strong lead performance with few, if any, dull moments but there were a few things that kept gnawing away at me whilst I was watching Frankie & Alice...

The film is structured with a non-linear narrative and normal films of this nature can be difficult to follow, but when you have a non-linear narrative in a film dealing with multiple personalities it does become a bit too much from time to time - this wasn't helped by the fact that in the early stages of the film that I was struggling to get to grips with which personality was which and how each personality slotted into the story. In the latter stages of the film I was starting to get my head round it all, but it was a struggle at times. Halle Berry's performance is good and certainly memorable, but sadly I didn't always find the screenplay complimented her performance all that well - I didn't think that her other personalities were developed as well as they could have been meaning that I found that I couldn't quite connect with/or get into Frankie's mind-set as much as I should have been able to.

Despite my objections above, the film has enough of interest about it to make it worth watching and as already mentioned Halle Berry gives a stellar performance (albeit at times it's a slightly overwhelming one/two woman type performance).

"Frankie & Alice" is a 2010 movie. It is based on a true story of a young woman with a multiple personality disorder and is now available on NetFlix Instant Download Streaming. The director is Geoffrey Sax. The screenplay is by Cheryl Edwards and Marko King. Halle Berry is Frankie, the afflicted woman. The rest of the cast includes Stellan Skarsgarrd, Phylicia Rashad, Chandra Wilson, Alex Diakun, Joanne Baron, Brian Markinson, Matt Frewer, Rosalyn Coleman, Sean Tyson, Melainie Papalia, Kira Clavell, Joey Bothwell, Adrian Holmes, James Kirk, Kennedy Goodkey, Andrew Francis, Vanessa Morgan, Michayla McKenzie and Megan Charpentier. The story revolves around the inner conflicts of Frankie's other selves and uses hypnosis to dig deep into her youth to find the answers. I gave this film a score of 6. Dale Haufrect

Not tremendous not bad above average for certain. I recently watched Stellan S in Nymphomaniac vol 1&2 and I enjoy his performances more every time I see him and this movie is no exception as a doctor who reconnects with his professional passions while seeking to help the dual personality conflicted Frankie (Berry) a bit of mystery in this as well will keep you wanting to know what happens til credits also a good initial watch especially if you enjoy starring roles of Halle Berry where see gets to display her range as an actress in dramatic roles that do more than simply showcase her beauty exp Monsters Ball. I like the time period as well as the insight to Frankie's profession in that era as well and enjoyed the the how did it aspect of this movie.