Frances Halladay is a 27-year-old struggling wanna-be dancer in NYC whose life is upended when her best friend from college, Sophie tells her she plans to relocate from Brooklyn to Tribeca. Frances, being an underpaid apprentice at a dance studio is unable to afford the move and is forced to find someplace else to live.
She moves to Chinatown and shares an apartment with her friends Lev and Benji for a short time.
Frances hopes for cash from the studio's Christmas show are dashed when she learns the company will not be able to include her in the show, which means Frances can no longer afford the apartment. Unable to stay in NYC she visits her hometown of Sacramento for the Holidays where she sees her family and reconnects with high school friends.
During a dinner with a friend she was staying with Frances discovers that "best friend" Sophie has quit her job at Random House and is moving to Tokyo with her boyfriend Patch. On a whim, France decides to spend what turned out to be an uneventful couple of days in Paris that she cannot afford.
France's next step in finding herself is to returns to her alma mater Vassar, where she works waitress and summer resident assistant. Overworked and not allowed to take classes, Frances reads Sophie's blog of her life in Tokyo, Japan.
France runs into Sophie and Patch who is at an alumni auction which Frances is waitressing for. She learns they are engaged and sees the couple get into a fight. Sophie stays with her after getting drunk, where Sophie reveals that she suffered a miscarriage while in Japan and is unhappy in her relationship. Frances eventually reconciles with Sophie and enjoys a simple but content existence as a bookkeeper for her former dance company and as a budding choreographer, teaching dance to young children.
Back in NYC she and Benji explore a potential relationship together and she finally rents her own apartment. Upon moving she writes her name on a piece of paper but her full last name does not fit, so she folds the paper to read: "Frances Ha."
Coming-of-age, goofy, modern B&W, goofy, dry.
This movie is about the realities of a late 20 something coming to terms with what it means to "come-of-age" as an artist in New York City. It depicts that this life is not a linear one and doesn't try to make complete sense of this fact.
