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 (Halle Berry) is a stripper with multiple personality disorder in 1970s. After an incident, she seeks help from Dr. Oz (Stellan Skarsgård). She lives with her mother Edna Murdoch (Phylicia Rashad) and sister Maxine (Chandra Wilson). She is haunted by memories and forgotten traumas. She disrupts Paige Prescott's wedding and gets thrown in jail. She gets Dr. Oz to evaluate her. She starts to remember her work as the Prescotts' maid and an illicit affair with Paige's brother.This is built for Halle Berry to do some acting work but it isn't much more than that. The secret memories aren't that compelling. It becomes one acting scene from Halle to another. There is an intriguing white racist personality which digs a little deeper and is something different. The story has no drive and no tension.

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

The question I had, was, Dr.Oz and his LSD experiments that Frankiesaid made him"responsible for the Grateful Dead", an older Owsley? Doctors of Psyciatry were experimenting with l222 earlier than the 70's, like around 1967. Was this a real character?If so , he was responsible for rock as we knew it and also Steve Jobs (to name a few) Brings a whole new meaning to the film. It says based on a true story. Who's true story? Anybody know the name of the book or Doctor? Director tried to make an interesting movie for adults, however, there are so little left that I suppose some more irrelevant 70's scenes and more sex would have satisfied the critics. We need more learned Critics is my opinion.