RECENT PRESS
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...
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...
‘Dear Frankie’ Is Delicate Scottish Gem
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...
‘Frankie’ Is Truly Dear
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...
‘Dear Frankie’ is quietly inspiring
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...
‘Dear Frankie’ is sweet but not saccharine
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 Review – Chicago Tribune
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....
Quiet ‘Frankie’ touches the heart
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...
Strong cast binds heartwarming Scottish import ‘Dear Frankie’
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...
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,...
‘Dear Frankie’ brings emotions home
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...
Charade
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....
A Refreshing Dose of Reality
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,...
Coming to a Heart Near You
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...