I’d like to welcome guest critic Mark Peikert, managing editor of the New York Press and City Arts, to tell us why the movie Frances is perfect viewing when you need to cut a bitch then buy a new gown. — Mark Blankenship

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When the world is a mean and infuriating place, there’s a little movie that I like to turn to: a two-hour-plus drama about a crazy blonde actress in 1930s Hollywood; her manipulative, fame-seeking mother; and a whole lot of hair acting. I’m speaking, of course, of 1982’s Frances.

For a movie as bad as Frances is (and it’s really terrible), Jessica Lange’s performance as the doomed Frances Farmer is unexpectedly good. Farmer’s tumultuous attempt at stardom has been largely fictionalized here, climaxing with Farmer being lobotomized, which… didn’t actually happen. At all. Director Graeme Clifford says on the DVD commentary, “We didn’t want to nickel and dime people to death with facts.” So instead we get a fictional best friend (Sam Shepard), a doctor performing that lobotomy with a hammer and an ice pick, and lots of mental asylum rape. Did much of it happen? Whenever Lange is on screen, it doesn’t much matter.

Lange belongs in that weird category of actress like Holly Hunter and Renee Zellweger: People either really hate her, or feel total ambivalence. (When was the last time you heard an impassioned defense of Zellweger?) Maybe it’s her voice? Like Hunter, Lange’s voice always seems to be coming from the corners of her mouth. Or maybe it’s her endless tics—some of her performances sound like a grandfather clock. All the reasons people dislike Lange are already there in this, her fifth film, but she is still capable of completely abandoning them as the shrieking, clawing, cursing Farmer, who never met an authority figure she didn’t rail against.

Arrest her for drunk driving with her headlights on during WWII blackouts? She’ll make a scene on the side of the road, in a white gown she stole from the hostess of the party she just left (where she took the liberty of bathing). Drag her to the police station after she socks a bitchy hairdresser? Well, okay, but don’t expect a genteel movie star attitude. When she’s asked for her occupation, she looks the cop dead in the eye and says, “Cocksucker.”

There isn’t a single moment we aren’t cheering her on. Who hasn’t wanted to scream “Fuck you all! Bastards!” and leave work abruptly in the middle of the day? Who hasn’t dreamed of returning to their hometown and telling off the small-minded people who spurred our departure? And, more importantly, who doesn’t want to do all of those things while looking fabulous? That combination of gritty determination against the odds (and the odds were stacked so high against the real Farmer that the fictional stuff feels like overkill) and old Hollywood glamour is irresistible, even as the movie turns into a muddled soap opera. So next time you have a shitty day, fire up Netflix Instant and let Frances Farmer say all the things you want to. You’ll feel better. Even without a lobotomy.