ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies.

SCOTTISH CINEMA has gained something of a reputation for gritty tales and dour realism. The world has come to see us through the eyes of films like ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Young Adam’.

‘Dear Frankie’ is a modest attempt to redress the balance with an old-fashioned heartwarmer charting the unbreakable bond between a mother and her deaf son. On the run from an abusive husband, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer) is devoted to her nine year-old son Frankie (Jack McElhone).

She has convinced him that his father is a sailor permanently away at sea. Frankie chooses not to speak, but he expresses all his hopes and fears in long letters to his absent dad. In return he receives encouraging missives from the far corners of the globe festooned with colourful postage stamps.
  
Lizzie arranges all of this, writes the replies and buys the stamps. Then, a local paper reports that his father’s ship is due in port. Rather than finally coming clean to the boy, Lizzie goes in search of someone who will pretend to be the boy’s father. She finds a willing candidate in a sullen stranger played by Gerard Butler (‘Phantom Of The Opera’).
  
Filmed on location in Greenock, ‘Dear Frankie’ has the look and feel of something that might have been made in the 1950s. The central premise involves a bigger suspension of disbelief than many viewers will be willing to make, and it leaves you with more questions than answers. However, Jack McElhone is an expressive child actor and his fresh, appealing performance might just be enough to win your heart and earn your tears.
  
DEAR FRANKIE
General release, selected cinemas
Director: Shona Auerbach
Writer: Andrea Gibb
Stars: Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Sharon Small, Jack McElhone, Mary
Riggans
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 103mins
Country: UK
Year: 2003
 

© Allan Hunter, 2005