Lizzie loves her son Frankie. That is why she is on the run. Shona Auerbach's sweet and thought-provoking little film "Dear Frankie" is the complete and utter anti-thesis to the other two new releases this weekend. Those films, "Be Cool" and "The Jacket," are loud,...

Lizzie Morrison (Emily Mortimer) lives on the run. Accompanied by her mother, Nell (Mary Riggans), and her deaf son, Frankie (Jack McElhone), she flits from one small Scottish town to the next, barely keeping ahead of the abusive ex-husband determined to find her....

CRITIC'S CHOICE A young deaf boy, Frankie (Jack McElhone), tracks on a map the peregrinations of the merchant ship on which his mother (Mortimer) has told him his absent father is working. He eagerly pores over the letters that arrive for him from exotic foreign...

Dear Frankie, your mom is pulling one over on you. Well, Emily Mortimer has the best intentions when she crafts a ruse for her precocious, deaf son (10-year-old Jack McElhone), telling him that his father is a sailor willing but unable to return home. She even writes...

FRANKIE Morrison, age 9, is deaf and doesn't speak, but he's far from dumb. He's a budding marine biologist growing up in Glasgow who pins a world map to the wall to chart the location of his father, a sailor who writes him regularly and whose ship, the Accra, is...

Dear Frankie (Shona Auerbach, UK 2004, 104mins) There is a quiet, yet distinct “once upon a time” quality at the heart of Shona Auerbach’s likeable, though uneven, debut feature, which is as much about the relationship of a young, single-mom and her deaf-mute son as...

THE OPENING MOMENTS of director Shona Auerbach's "Dear Frankie" reflect the love and attention the filmmakers clearly lavished on this wondrous little gem: A boy carefully packs his few treasures up in newspapers and a cardboard box as his family prepares to move. In...

CRITIC'S CHOICE DRAMA A young deaf boy, Frankie (Jack McElhone), tracks on a map the peregrinations of the merchant ship on which his mother (Mortimer) has told him his absent father is working. He eagerly pores over the letters that arrive for him from exotic foreign...

Set in a Scottish port city, 'Dear Frankie' is infused with tender family feeling. "Dear Frankie" stars Emily Mortimer as a single mother who creates a make-believe dad to compensate for the one her 9-year-old son has already got. Lizzie (Mortimer), Frankie (Jack...

Lizzie, a single mom desperate for a man in the deeply moving domestic drama "Dear Frankie," anxiously scans the faces of every male at a Glasgow pub. As Lizzie, Emily Mortimer uses her dark, expressive eyes to register dismay at a bland balding patron followed by...

DEAR FRANKIE. With Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Jack McElhone. Director Shona Auerbach. (1:45) At Angelika, Lincoln Square. PG: Language. It sounds like the scenario for a sitcom: Single mother of deaf kid pays stranger to be father for a day - entanglements ensue....

Moving performances almost overcome emotional conceits in tender drama about a boy and his fake father Sometimes no amount of good acting can make a film hold your interest. "Dear Frankie" stars newcomer Jack McElhone as 10-year-old Frankie, a deaf Scottish lad who...

So much of our sense of contemporary Glasgow has come from the films of Ken Loach that one initially reacts to first-time feature director Shona Auerbach and writer Andrea Gibb as interlopers. However, Dear Frankie is neither facsimile of, nor poor cousin to, Loach’s...

Dear Frankie Shona Auerbach's first feature is a Scottish seriocomedy that's bittersweet but perhaps just a little too low-key for its own good. Nine-year-old Frankie (Jake McElhone), his mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), and grandmother Nell (Mary Riggans) are...

FRANKIE, a nine year-old deaf boy, has been writing to his father since his family split up. He lives with his mother Lizzie (Emily Mortimer) in a Glasgow flat and thinks his dad, who he can't remember, is working on a ship sailing round the world. What he doesn't...

Dear Frankie Shona Auerbach /Scotland | 2004 | 102mins | 35mm | Colour Producer Caroline Wood Leading Players Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Sharon Small, Jack McElhone Photography Shona Auerbach Script Andrea Gibb Editor Oral Norrie Ottey Music Alex Heffes On the...

In the hands of a Hollywood studio this would have become a sickly, sentimental mess. But in the hands of first-time Scottish director Shona Auerbach, this tale of a deaf boy awaiting the return of his father from sea is a sharp-edged gem. Single Mum Lizzie (Emily...

DEAR FRANKIE CERT 12A 105 MINS Despite being given a standing ovation at Cannes and then a well received UK premiere at last year's Edinburgh Film Festival, the debut feature by Warwickshire based director Shona Auerbach has been somewhat unceremoniously left to...

Directed by: Shona Auerbach Starring: Emily Mortimer, Gerald Butler, Jack McElhone YOU might have heard about Dear Frankie. It’s the little Scottish film no-one wanted to make that became one of the hits of last year’s Cannes film festival, where it reportedly...

Director: Shona Auerbach Cast: Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Jack McElhone, Sharon Small Cert: 12. A warm-hearted story of deception for the right reasons and the consequences of the deception, Dear Frankie is handled with skill and charm by debutante director Shona...

This moving Scottish drama has a strongly emotional punch that, nicely, never turns sappy or sentimental at all. Lizzie (Mortimer) is on the run again, moving with her 9-year-old son Frankie and her cantankerous mother (Riggans) to a new flat so her ex doesn't find...

(U.K.) A Miramax Films (U.S.)/Pathe Distribution (U.K.) release of a Pathe Pictures presentation in association with U.K. Film Council, Scottish Screen of a Scorpio Films production in association with Sigma Films, Inside Track Prods. Produced by Caroline Wood....

Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Sharon Small, Jack McElhone, Mary Riggans Directed by Shona Auerbach 2005 Drama Rated PG-13 - for language Gerard Butler hid his looks behind a mask and disfiguring makeup in The Phantom of the Opera. But onscreen in Dear Frankie, Butler...

This year's Heartland Film Festival winners celebrate the positive values of life. But the fare isn't always kid-friendly. 'Dear Frankie' ***1/2 A fiercely protective mother (Emily Mortimer) concocts an elaborate lie to shield her deaf son from the truth about his...

THE PRESENCE OF Gerry Butler has presumably inspired Miramax to postpone the public release of Dear Frankie until 2005, when his rising star is expected to be further illuminated by his title role in Joel Schumacher's film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom...