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
harveycritic@cs.com
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