Dear Frankie Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)September 27th, 2004
DEAR FRANKIE
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Miramax Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Shona Auerbach
Written by: Andrea Gibb
Cast: Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Sharon Small, Jack McElhone, Mary Riggans, Sean Brown, Jayd Johnson, John
Kazek, Katy Murphy, Anna Hepburn, Cal Macaninch, Sophie
Main, Anne Marie Timoney
Screened at: Review, NYC, 8/24/04
Conservative or liberal, socialist or Republican, all agree: every kid needs a good father to serve as his or her model of male behavior. The father may not be around all the time. He could be on an opposite coast or in the merchant marines. Just the knowledge that there's a good dad out there could be enough. In fact, as this movie will show, finding dad geographically separated by his job is better than having an abusive male stomping about the house.
The situation in which little Frankie (Jack McElhone) finds himself is an unusual one. His father, Davey (Cal Macaninch) had been so abusive to the boy that Frankie had become almost stone deaf and mute, his behind-the-ear hearing aid virtually without value to him. Frankie's Mom (Emily Mortimer) had run away with the boy and is justifiably fearful of her husband's return, particularly since Davey's sister had placed an ad in the paper seeking the whereabouts of a "missing person."
Since Frankie has no memory of his real father's abuse, Lizzie, the boy's mother, has persuaded the lad that his father is a sailor on a ship called the Accra. The letters that Frankie receives regularly from the Accra and signed with dad's name are all actually written by Lizzie, a big lie which would seem justifiable except that Frankie grandmother, Nell (Mary Riggans), takes a hard line, recommending that Lizzie tell Frankie the whole truth. The game appears to be up when the Accra actually docks and Frankie insists, of course, on meeting his father. His mom, accelerating the white lie, hires a stranger (Gerard Butler) to take on the role of dad for a day, a game plan that results in Frankie's happiness but, perhaps even more unexpectedly, leads to considerable changes in both Lizzie and the stranger.
"Dear Frankie," a small film, photographed by director Shona Auerbach in a dismal corner of Europe in Greenock on the Clyde coast of Scotland, is a heartfelt tale acted so well particularly by the lovely Emily Mortimer that it could bring tears to the eyes of many in the audience. Yet it is not mawkish. Somehow, despite the boy's handicap–which prevents him from fitting in with his peers in school though he has two good friends–we don't pity him since he appears to accept his handicap with grace. He's easy to love. Unlike the typical American kid who has trouble pointing out the United States on a wall map of the world, this young man has planted little flags on all the ports traversed by the Accra. It's no wonder, then, that geography is his favorite and best subject–perhaps a lesson here that educator John Dewey was right when he said that the only way to teach a child is to have him learn by doing.
While Emily Mortimer understates her good looks and Gerard Butler ("Lara Croft: Tomb Raider") his star power in keeping with the entire film's quiet moments, "Dear Frankie" comes across as a unique family values story without soap-opera melodramatics or false steps.
Rated PG-13. 105 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten at
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
