May 08, 2005
Dear Frankie doing well
It's great how well Dear Frankie is currently doing, particularly with its run abroad. In a time where Scottish (and British) productions are finding it harder and harder to scrape money together to produce movies, even movies that have script, crew and actors all signed up.
I'm slightly biased in this, since I'm Scottish, but I think there's a lot of talent, material and non-dreary drug movies in our country, and they just can't get out. So it is good to hear a review of the movie from The Daytona Beach News praise it so positively.
"Dear Frankie" -- a 2004 Heartland Film Festival Crystal Heart Award winner -- is a story that needed that kind of affection, because it's a fragile tale that easily could have swirled off into syrupy sentiment. While the film has an elegiac tone and spins a mournfully sweet drama of family bonds tested and renewed, it remains firmly rooted in the bleak industrial grit of the Scottish seaport where it is set......So much of "Dear Frankie" is told in the stillnesses, the gazes among characters, and first-time director Auerbach could scarcely have found a cast more suited to that end.
Check out the trailer from Apple to get a taster.
Posted by at May 8, 2005 09:23 AM
Comments
Posted by: James Russell at May 8, 2005 11:42 AM
DEAR FRANKIE was such an excellent film and it's good to see it doing well. In Hollywood, Nora Ephron would direct this and it would turn into a Romantic-Comedy starring Kate Hudson and Ben Affleck or something. The US trailer even feels like it would be more lighthearted and frothy than it turned out to be. It's a wonderfully engaging and potent film, filled with excellent performances and with an ending that is so appropriate. Emily Mortimer is absolutely to die for, as well!
Posted by: Goro at May 8, 2005 12:05 PM
I thought it was beautifully made. I saw it on the first day of release, but it didnt stay too long in the London cinemas. I must admit, this movie would have escaped my attention but it didnt because Mr Butler was in it, so its due to him that I wanted to see it, but found that the film was actually wonderfully made.
I am waiting for its DVD release now.
Posted by: Simone at May 8, 2005 01:52 PM
I liked the look of this when I saw the trailer, some time ago now, but for some reason never sought it out. From these reviews, I think I'll definitely rent this on DVD when it's available... unless I can still find it on a cinema somewhere.
Posted by: JohnW at May 9, 2005 03:59 AM
i love dear frankie to bit!!! i've seen it thrice in the theaters and lemme just say that save for field of dreams i have not seen so many men crying over a movie. the movie has a very strong cast and gerry butler delivers a nuanced performance and shows the brooding intensity that makes him real fascinating to watch.
Posted by: gypsy at May 9, 2005 04:05 AM
i love dear frankie to bits!!! i've seen it thrice in the theaters and lemme just say that save for field of dreams i have not seen so many men crying over a movie. the movie has a very strong cast and gerry butler delivers a nuanced performance and shows the brooding intensity that makes him real fascinating to watch.
Posted by: gypsy at May 9, 2005 04:06 AM
Awwwww gypsy, I loved "Field of Dreams"!
"Build it and they will come."
Butler is the MAN! *swoons*
Posted by: Simone at May 9, 2005 04:45 AM
Oh sweet lord. Field of Dreams is a corker for making me go...Fathers and sons is the theme here that gets men weeping, hence Dear Frankie!
Tell you another, Always...get's me every time.
Oh, and Airplane and Top Secret...although that's for laughing.
Posted by: Richard Brunton at May 9, 2005 01:41 PM
Quite impressed by Dear Frankie myself, particularly the way it generally reins in the sentimentality to which a Hollywood telling of the same tale would've given unabashed full rein. It does have a few moments early on where you wish something would happen and it does require you to swallow a fairly unlikely coincidence as a major plot point, but for the most part it tells the story well enough that these considerations don't hinder it.
Mind you, I come from Scottish extraction myself, although I don't think that biases me.