Frank

This is a hard one to pin down. Frank is an absurdist comedy-drama with an undercurrent of tragedy. A young keyboard player joins an eccentric band led by the mysterious Frank who wears a huge papier-mâché head. UK viewers will recognise the 'head' as belonging to Frank Sidebottom (played by Michael Fassbender). But whereas the original Frank was an upbeat, optimistic northern comedy performer created by Chris Sievey, this Frank is portrayed as an American musician with serious mental heath problems (he won't take the head off. Ever). His band-mates are not much better in the sanity stakes, and while this makes for some good moments of comedy in the early parts of the film, the novelty quickly wears off. There's a fine line between creativity and madness, but basing a whole film on this proposition eventually becomes too demanding. Viewers who like oddball films and quirky music will probably find this more engaging than I did. 5/10