Isabelle Huppert stars in Irah Sachs's Frankie.opening scene, a woman tests the waters of a hotel pool before her morning swim. Much like someone diving into a David Hockney picture, her insouciant plunge shatters the picturesque tranquility and brings the moment to life. The screenplay by director Ira Sachs and his regular co-writer Mauricio Zacharias was named for that woman and written expressly for Isabelle Huppert, the actress who plays her.
“Because in a way when I look at Marisa Tomei and Isabelle Huppert together, I see the images of that film,” Sachs elaborates, “because there’s something about the female friendship that is important to this film.” “That film really affected me, really had certain rules that I thought were really interesting,” he explains. “It takes place in one day, it’s a family on vacation, there’s nine stories, it begins in the morning and ends in the afternoon.”was also an influence, “to create characters that are both very real and also very theatrical and a little bit cartoonish. Pushing things a little bit,” Sachs says, “which I think Renoir gives you the permission to try.
Sachs chimes in that he’s been out until 3 o’clock in the morning with Huppert in Toronto, “because she’s always interested in going to the next thing. And to being open to things. And I think that’s why she has a really interesting creative life. Because she follows her instincts and she’s not scared.”