RECENT PRESS
Dear Frankie: A ‘Reunion’ in Shades of Gray
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...
Frankie is a Story Dear to the Heart
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...
BBC’S BURNS DRAMA LOSES POETIC LICENCE
A NEW television drama which paints a somewhat unflattering portrait of Rabbie Burns has been quietly shelved by the BBC. Loving Burns, which had Robert Carlyle, below, earmarked for the starring role, portrays the famous bard as a predator who sexually abused his...
Honest love letter: Fake father ploy sinks when his ship sails in
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...
IT’S A MOVIE DEAR TO THE HEART
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...
DRESS TO KILT IN NEW YORK
THE DRESS code is uncompromising: "Collared shirts for men. No trainers, work boots, baggy clothes, hats or men wearing chained jewellery. Dress jeans only. " That would usually rule out everyone up to and including a Village People tribute band. But this week the...
YOUR NAME MAY NOT BE ON THE LIST BUT IT SUITS YOU, SIR
WHEN IT COMES to the colour green, I'm with Kermit. It's really not an easy shade to pull off in an outfit, thanks to its undertones of school uniforms, elves and a certain Glasgow football team. Last year's fashion for all things of a grassy hue had me scuttling back...
Showing the theme of life through the soul of a child
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...
Phantom Fathers
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...
‘Dear Frankie’ gets you right in the haggis
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...
A Press Conference with the Director, Screenwriter and Actors of Dear Frankie
The Dear Frankie press conference took place at the 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Present were the film's director and director of photography Shona Auerbach, screenwriter Andre Gregg, actor (The Stranger) Gerard Butler, actor (Marie) Sharon Small. "Dear...
Frankly teardrop
Shona Auerbach weighs out a frugal Scot weepie DEAR FRANKIE Starring Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone. Written by Andrea Gibb. Directed by Shona Auerbach. (PG) 105 min. Opens Mar 25. The tale of a desperate mother, her deaf son and a mysterious stranger, Dear Frankie...
INTERVIEW: Inside Dear Frankie
MovieWeb sits down with Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler to discuss Dear Frankie Dear Frankie tells the story of a mother who hires a stranger to pose as her son's long lost father. The real father was an abuser from whom she has run away and hid her child. She does...
Critics fall in love with Dear Frankie
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...
Stranger is a lifeline to family
On paper, the Scottish drama "Dear Frankie" sounds suitable only for adults who collect Hallmark cards: A single mother raising a deaf child attempts to keep him from learning that his father was so physically abusive she had to leave him and that they remain...
Rough seas make for uplifting story in ‘Dear Frankie’
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...
Dear Frankie Review by Roger Ebert
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...
‘Dear Frankie’ nearly is letter perfect
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...
Tear-jerker `Frankie’ nearly letter-perfect
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 bittersweet ‘Frankie’
"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,...