Dir.
Shona Auerbach, 2004 , UK , 102 mins
Cast:
Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Jack McElhone, Mary Riggans
Starring Emily Mortimer and the brooding Gerard Butler, Dear Frankie is a touching but faulted gem of a film about a young mother's dilemma about whether to confront the truth or continue to live a lie. Directed by Shona Auerbach in her feature debut, the film centres around Lizzie, mother to young deaf Frankie, and her life on the run from her abusive husband (a cameo role by the underused Cal Macaninch). She has pretended for years to Frankie that his father is a sailor on Navy ship Accra as an explanation for his absence rather than tell him the truth. The film joins the pair as they prepare to leave their old home for a new one on the edge of Glasgow complete with Lizzie's grumpy mother. A fresh start for the family but when Lizzie finds out that Accra does exist and is coming into port near their new home, she decides to continue the lie and recruits a Stranger (Butler) to pretend to be Frankie's dad for the day.
So far so good but there isn't enough character development around some of the main parts, particularly Lizzie. Mortimer puts in a good enough performance, but cannot hide the fact that we simply don't know enough about her. We don't know why she married, why she didn't go to college (she's clearly clever and resourceful enough) or anything about her background. We find out later in the film that she left her husband Davey when Frankie was just a toddler and that Davey's violence was the cause of Frankie's deafness, but there's not enough padding to the character to make her quite three dimensional. This raises problems later on when the Stranger begins to fall for her. True, Lizzie has her own charm but her desperation to save Frankie from the truth overrides any sense of a true personality. We wonder then if the Stranger falls for her vulnerability rather than her as a person - surely not a good message for the film?
There's another hole in the plot too - the Stranger is recruited by Lizzie's new found friend Marie (the brilliantly understated Sharon Small) and his identity is later revealed as being none other than Marie's brother. But this is a real problem. Lizzie wanted someone she would never see again and bearing in mind that Marie lives about three doors down, it seems unlikely that either her or Frankie wouldn't see him again in his own guise rather than pretending to be Frankie's pa. Ok, so she falls for him too and at the end Frankie reveals in a letter to his 'dad' via a post box that Lizzie set up years ago (she writes the responses) that he knew the truth all along. This seems unlikely, why would he pretend to go along with the pretence? Because he's protective of his mother? It doesn't quite ring true which is a real shame as right up until the end, the film is pretty strong but the happy ending seems rather contrived.
Despite this though, the film is well worth catching. Andrea Gibb based the screenplay on an earlier short (perhaps an explanation for the lack of character development?) and, like Auerbach, is clearly one to watch. The dialogue is short and snappy and the central story provides an interesting dilemma. For a first feature screenplay, Gibb's done pretty well. It will be fascinating to see Afterlife, her next screenplay, to see how she develops. As for Auerbach (also Director of Photography), this is a visually brilliant and unusual debut - the rugged landscape hugging the industrialised port should be ugly yet instead it is awe inspiring in its beauty whilst the dimly lit interiors are homely and safe yet grimly austere. So, despite its faults, Dear Frankie is still a good little watch and marks the feature debut of what looks set to be another wave of strong film-makers from Scotland - and this can only be a good thing for the waning British film industry.
Elizabeth Hyder
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