Dad For A Day
"Dear Frankie" tender love letter to parents and children

It sounds like the all-too-familiar plot of some dizzy comedy: a young woman is compelled to hire a male stranger to pretend to be her husband/fiancé/partner for one day, to carry off some complicated ruse. But there's nothing dizzy about Dear Frankie, a charming, tenderly persuasive little fable about children and parents, and the lengths we all go to for those we love.

The film marks the feature debut of two talented women filmmakers, scriptwriter Andrea Gibb, and director Shona Auerbach, a former photographer who also acts as her own cinematographer on the set. Dear Frankie has been floating around the festival circuit for almost a year without ever getting a wide release, but that's no reflection on the quality of this good-humored, quietly moving little film. It's well worth the wait, and worth the effort of tracking it down.

The story is set in the rugged port city of Glasgow, and it takes a few scenes for the untrained ear to tune in on the Scottish accents. (Unlike the dramas of Peter McMullan, this one is not subtitled.) But that's appropriate for the tale of nine-year-old Frankie (Jack McElhone), a self-possessed deaf lad who's "a champion lip-reader," and who's constantly challenged to find ways to ingratiate himself into a series of new schools in the new towns he's always moving to with his peripatetic mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer).

Always on the move, Lizzie's solution to any problem is to pack up Frankie, her own irascible mum (Mary Riggans), and all their stuff, and hit the road for someplace new, running from a past she fears might catch up to them all some day. Besides the strong bond of love he shares with his mom and Nana, the only continuity in young Frankie' life are the letters he writes to the absent dad he's never seen, on a cargo ship slowly plying its trade around the world. But there is no such person. Unknown to Frankie, his mom collects the letters from the post office box and writes him replies, using exotic international stamps she buys from a stamp dealer.

In seafaring Glasgow, however, the unthinkable happens: the ship Frankie thinks he's been writing to all these years is putting into port. Unable to confess to Frankie that she's been lying to him for so long about such an important part of his life, Lizzie hatches a desperate plan to find a stranger she can pay to play the part of Frankie's dad for one day, so her son's precious illusions won't be dashed.

With the help of her new friend, Marie (Sharon Small), owner of a chip shop down the road who's given her a job, Lizzie finds a taciturn stranger (Gerard Butler) so simpatico with Lizzie's "no past, no present, no future" dictum that he doesn't even tell her his real name. Meanwhile, Lizzie has to cope with the unexpected and unwanted re-emergence of Frankie's real dad into their lives.

Neither farce nor melodrama, Dear Frankie hews to a much more appealing and evocative middle ground one might call real-life drama. Scriptwriter Gibb explores the relationships of children and parents with nuance and skill. Despite the hoax she's perpetrated for so long, Lizzie's loving guidance is evident in Frankie's self-assurance in new situations, and in establishing his own personality. (He so loves ships and the sea, he refuses to eat fish with his chips.) As tartly as Lizzie and her mom spar over the fake dad scheme (and everything else), their fierce, mutual support is never in doubt. And while Lizzie ponders how she ever let her hoax go on for so long, she wistfully confesses that reading Frankie's letters is "the only way I can hear his voice."

Young McElhone's reserved pluckiness is completely credible, and Mortimer makes a strong and sympathetic Lizzie. The nicest surprise is Butler (last seen struggling to withstand the sturm und drang excesses of The Phantom Of The Opera), who brings stoic presence and cautious warmth to the pivotal role of the designated dad for a day. Auerbach coaxes the best out of her cast in this accomplished film with a graceful sense of itself.

DEAR FRANKIE With Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone, and Gerard Butler. Written by Andrea Gibbs. Directed by Shona Auerbach. A Miramax release. Rated PG-13. 105 minutes. (***1/2)
Review published in Good Times, April 28, 2005