Dear Frankie – 2004 | 105 mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Shona Auerbach’s assured debut feature Dear Frankie chronicles a young mother’s elaborate attempts to shelter her deaf son from the truth about his violent father. This intimate Scottish drama might have become syrupy in other commercially-driven hands but Andrea Gibb’s stirring script gives warmth and emotional insight into the strains of a dysfunctional family. The central performances from Mortimer, Butler and Elhone are exemplary and their well-drawn characters create a believable relationship of vulnerability, friendship and tentative romance.

Nine-year-old Frankie (Jack McElhone), his single mum Lizzie (Emily Mortimer) and chin-smoking grandmother Nell (Mary Riggans) have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in Greenock on the Scottish coast. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they’ve run away from his abusive father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is an adventure-seeking sailor away at sea onboard the freighter Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As the fascinated Frankie tracks the ship’s progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown.

With the real Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie decides to maintain the deception by employing a substitute father in the shape of a brooding merchant seaman (Gerard Butler). Intended as a one-day ruse, the arrangement extends into a full weekend as the stranger bonds with both Frankie ands his mother. But the fragile family harmony is soon shattered when Frankie’s terminally-ill real father demands to see his son.