Barnes & Noble

It’s refreshing, now and then, to watch a movie that tells its story simply and quietly and still manages to keep its viewers riveted to the screen without resorting to explosions, shootouts, sexual innuendo, or bathroom humor. Dear Frankie is just such a movie, one of the most affecting stories in many a moon. The eponymous protagonist is a deaf nine-year-old boy (skillfully played by Jack McElhone) being raised by his mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), and grandmother Nell (Mary Riggins). Lizzie fled her abusive husband years ago, when Frankie was just a baby, and she explains away the father’s absence by telling the boy that his father is a sailor on a freighter, the Accra, and is away at sea. Frankie writes letters to his dad that Lizzie surreptitiously intercepts and answers, maintaining the fiction that his father still cares about him. When a real freighter named Accra unexpectedly docks in Glasgow, Lizzie scrambles to find a sailor willing to impersonate the errant father for one day and meet the expectant boy. Gerard Butler plays the Stranger, who accepts the assignment on the strength of Lizzie’s promise to pay and assumes the missing dad’s name (Davey). He brings unusual depth to a character that, on paper, is something of a cipher. Andrea Gibb’s script is appealingly simple, and director Shona Auerbach elicits from the principal players subtle performances that convey a wealth of emotion with pregnant pauses, knowing looks, and evocative body language. In lesser hands this material might easily have become maudlin or saccharine, but Auerbach restrains her cast and keeps the narrative moving in a straight line at all times without resorting to hackneyed devices designed to get the audience’s tear ducts flowing. This simplicity of treatment and directness of purpose makes Dear Frankie a joy to watch -- such elemental, uncluttered storytelling is seldom seen these days. It’s a pleasure to know that some filmmakers still hold it dear. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Directed by Shona Auerbach, Dear Frankie revolves around nine-year-old Frankie (Jack McElhone) and his mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer). The mother and son duo have been on the run for as long as Frankie, who has been deaf for years, can remember. In an effort to protect Frankie from the truth -- that a psychotic father, whose physical abuse caused his hearing loss, is at the root of their constant need to move from one home to the next -- Lizzie pens a series of letters from Frankie's "father" in hopes of assuaging his curiosity. However, when Frankie becomes convinced that his father is taking a break from his exotic adventures and making his way back home, Lizzie must make a tough decision: find another way to pacify Frankie's desire to meet his father or tell him the awful truth. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Chicago Sun-Times

What eventually happens, while not entirely unpredictable, benefits from close observation, understated emotions, unspoken feelings, and the movie's tact; it doesn't require its characters to speak about their feelings simply so that we can hear them. Roger Ebert

Boston Globe

Yet Dear Frankie continually stops short of dumping the full load in our laps, and the denouement is both unexpected and gratifyingly slight. Ty Burr

USA Today

Dear Frankie is a sweet, life-affirming story of the sort that easily could easily get overlooked. Miramax Pictures...repeatedly rescheduled the movie's opening and seems to be giving it little marketing attention. How unfortunate that such a lovely and humanistic film got caught in a Hollywood political struggle. It deserves to find an audience. Claudia Puig

Product Details

• UPC: 786936270938
• Source: MIRAMAX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: Français, English
• Subtitles: Español
• Time: 1:45:00
• Sales Rank: 2,136

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