Saint Frances follows Bridget, a 34-year-old woman who feels stuck after leaving college and working in a restaurant. In a wealthy suburb near Chicago, she takes a summer job caring for six-year-old Frances, even though she says she does not like children. At the same time, Bridget becomes pregnant after casual sex and chooses a medical abortion without changing her mind. The gentle comedy turns messy body problems, family stress, and uncertain adult life into a warm but sometimes blunt story about friendship and growing up.
The film puts abortion and the right to choose near the center of Bridget’s story, and it treats her decision as normal rather than shameful. It also shows periods, sex, breastfeeding, after-birth depression, and motherhood in direct ways that challenge older ideas about what women should hide. Frances lives with Maya and Annie, a couple from different racial backgrounds, and the film treats their two-mother family as a normal and loving home. Bridget also explains that men have traditionally held power over women, while many male characters are shown as selfish, childish, or less caring than the women around them.
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Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Saint Frances.
Woke representation / casting
The film gives major roles to Maya and Annie, a couple from different racial backgrounds who are raising children together. Their same-sex family is easy for viewers to notice. The story takes place in modern suburban Illinois, and the family is presented as part of the local community rather than as a special diversity message. The wider cast does not show a repeated identity pattern across every major role.
30%
Woke political dialogue
Bridget tells Jace that men should wear condoms instead of leaving birth control to women. Bridget explains patriarchy to Frances as a system where men rule women. Bridget links having children with climate change, school shootings, and possible nuclear war. The film repeats this kind of talk while discussing abortion, sex, and gender roles.
44%
Identity-driven story themes
Bridget chooses an abortion, and the film presents that choice as calm, valid, and free of regret. The story repeatedly treats periods, sex, breastfeeding, after-birth depression, and motherhood as subjects women should discuss without shame. Maya and Annie’s same-sex family is a central home setting, and the film treats their relationship and parenting as normal. Bridget also accepts a life that does not follow marriage, children, or a fixed career.
64%
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film often contrasts women who carry emotional and family burdens with some men who are selfish, childish, or unable to handle blood and feelings. Bridget defines patriarchy as a world where men make the rules and women obey. The story questions the idea that women should want marriage, children, or tidy motherhood. Catholic prayer appears through Maya, but the film does not make a broad attack on churches or other Western institutions.
45%
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. The film is an original story about Bridget and a fictional family. It does not change an established character, source story, or historical figure.
0%
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Movieguide calls the film politically correct and strongly feminist, pro-abortion, and pro-homosexual, and it rejects the film’s message. A Common Sense Media review calls it a “Woke Checklist for Millennials” and says it pushes an agenda. Two Rotten Tomatoes users describe a woke worldview, a left-wing tract, and a story that treats heterosexual men as the only people without victim status. The supplied X search found no anti-woke posts, boycott calls, or review-bombing, so the backlash evidence is clear but limited.
42%
Creator track record context
Alex Thompson has a moderate record tied to stories about gender, reproduction, family, and moving beyond white and straight characters as the default. Kelly O’Sullivan has a moderate feminist record centered on women’s bodies and a same-sex parenting family. Producer Raphael Nash has a stronger record in racial representation, media justice, and activist film teaching. Most other listed producers and the casting directors have limited or mixed public evidence of identity-focused activism.
49%
Production
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