Scottish drama avoids the usual pitfalls for heart-tuggers about kids When you hear the plot of "Dear Frankie," you may briefly feel a wave of cynicism roll over you. But the movie has been shot with love and wisdom, and its implausible premise doesn't get in the way...

In a seen-it-all world of cinema, the Scottish film Dear Frankie stands out as a fresh, original way to explore the human condition. While the film is remarkable for its subtle, finely honed performances, it is screenwriter Andrea Gibb's story that first jumps out. A...

3/4 stars There's a cool, gray overlay to Dear Frankie that effectively neutralizes any impulse to extract gratuitous tears. Certainly, the premise of Andrea Gibb's script all but begs for the usual "It Will Touch Your Heart" blurbs. An intelligent, hearing-impaired...

Leave it to Britain -- in this case Scotland -- to give us another unassumingly wonderful film about a family trying to make the best of things. In the case of "Dear Frankie," directed by Shona Auerbach and written by Andrea Gibb, it's a story about a deaf boy and his...

Satisfying and even gratifying, Dear Frankie is loaded with traps. Magically, it escapes almost all of them. First, the characters: There's a fatherless, hearing-impaired 9-year-old boy, Frankie, who longs for a dear ol' dad. There's a devoted but discouraged mother,...

PLOT: An overprotective mother hires a stranger to pose as her son's long-lost father, a man whom the boy knows only from fake letters from abroad that the mother has been secretly writing. The decision has unexpected consequences. --- IN A SEEN-IT-ALL world of...

Dear Frankie Rating 4 Starring: Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone, Gerard Butler Playing at: AMC cinema. Parents' guide: for all - - - In the wrong hands, Shona Auerbach's Dear Frankie could have gone way off the sentimentality scale. Look at the elements: a single...

WEE WITHOUT being really twee, Dear Frankie is built for audiences craving adorable foreign kids striving through life, with a finale that works the tear ducts like pepper spray. The film boasts the added appeal of black-eyed, elfin-chinned Emily Mortimer as Lizzie, a...

For the perfect lump of sugar to stabilize so much acid, the British film Dear Frankie is a soft-hearted but soberly made little movie that gives sentimentality a good name. Frankie is a 9-year-old deaf child whose abusive father deserted the family, leaving the...

When the 'fictional' ship comes to town, Frankie's mother has to face the truth. Every once in a while, American audiences are fortunate to see a little foreign film with a whole lot of heart and character. Actually, it is more like they are fortunate to see a foreign...

Always on the move, nine-year-old Frankie and his single mom Lizzie settle in a Scottish town. Lizzie doesn't want Frankie, who is deaf, to discover that they're fleeing from his father. She writes fake letters to convince him that his father is out having wild...

Cast & Credits Lizzie Morrison: Emily Mortimer The Stranger: Gerard Butler Marie: Sharon Small Frankie Morrison: Jack McElhone Nell Morrison: Mary Riggans Ricky Munroe: Sean Brown Catriona Murray: Jayd Johnson Ally: John Kazek Miss MacKenzie: Katy Murphy Miramax...

This little gem of a Scottish film is the kind of story that can be told only in the movies. Despite the drudge and routine hum of small-town port life it portrays, it's just too well-intentioned to be true. Still, it finds an idealistic, hopeful humanity within its...

Frankie, the 9-year-old boy at the center of the sweet, enormously touching Scottish film "Dear Frankie," is deaf, mute and always the new kid in town. His mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), has been uprooting him every few months since he was little, moving from city...

I'M A SUCKER for daddy movies. I can trace the onset of my hypersensitivity to such films (meaning I get misty-eyed and inarticulate anywhere near stories revolving around the relationship between a father and child, especially a boy) to the birth of my own son 5 1/2...

Emily Mortimer Glows In Maternal Role 'Dear Frankie' (PG-13) Popcorn rating Popcorn ratingPopcorn rating three(out of four popcorns) Emily Mortimer is one of those actresses who you know her face, and she has a large list of film credits to her name, but you don't...

Scottish movie rings true as a film that deserves every heart it wins ... and it will win many. 'Dear Frankie' GRADE: B+ Rated PG-13 for language Running time: 102 minutes Nine-year-old Frankie is small and deaf and he misses having a father. So he writes letters to...

"Dear Frankie" is a small, enchanting movie set in and around Glasgow, Scotland, and centers on the yearning of its title character, a deaf 9-year-old (Jack McElhone), for a faceless father he knows only as a pen pal. Trouble is, the pen pal is actually, secretly,...

In the well-acted, two-hankie weepie ``Dear Frankie,'' a 9-year-old deaf boy (Jack McElhone) longs for the father he believes is writing him letters as he sails the seven seas. It's all a lovely hoax perpetrated by the boy's devoted mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer,...

A woman's flight from an abusive husband turns into a strangely heartwarming story of devotion in Scotland's "Dear Frankie." Emily Mortimer ("Lovely and Amazing") plays the mother, who's spent several years on the run, moving from town to town, taking odd jobs, doing...

Most movies are afraid of scenes where people simply sit together without speaking. Maybe filmmakers think the audience's attention span will snap, or somebody will turn the channel. Maybe they're right. Still, "Dear Frankie" proves the spectacle of people silently...

3 stars (out of 4) Sometimes we enjoy movies even if we know exactly how they work and exactly how they're going to turn out. Director Shona Auerbach's debut feature "Dear Frankie" appeals to this sensibility, with its engaging, intimate story of a tender deception....

By all rights, ''Dear Frankie" should be unbearably sentimental bilge. That's certainly how it comes across in the trailers. But this wee Scottish drama takes a mawkish premise and, by playing its cards close to the vest, imbues it with quiet, careworn dignity. The...

Dear Frankie is a sweet, life-affirming story of the sort that easily could easily get overlooked. Miramax Pictures, the distributor with an uncertain future, repeatedly rescheduled the movie's opening and seems to be giving it little marketing attention. How...

One of four films showcased at this month’s Portland International Film Festival, Dear Frankie had already created quite a buzz at Cannes, where it elicited a 15-minute standing ovation. Showings at the Sedona, AZ and Cleveland, OH Festivals in March will round out...