Share
Film
Jessica Winter
Tuesday, February 22nd 2005
Mike Leigh spins silk out of shoestrings and Terence Davies can't even get a foot in the financiers' door, but somehow the U.K. film industry can always scrounge enough loose change from the cushions to foot the bill for a pre-chewed lump of sickly saltwater taffy like the mawkish Scottish-seaside postcard Dear Frankie. Emily Mortimer (last seen getting a big banging from Ewan McGregor while covered in custard and ketchup in Young Adam) plays single mother Lizzie, who's been on the run from her violent husband for years; her deaf nine-year-old, Frankie (Jack McElhone), has no memory of his thuggish father, and Lizzie eagerly fills in this lacuna with tales of a fantasy sailor Dad on the high seas. When his supposed ship comes to dock at Frankie and Lizzie's latest hometown, quick-thinking Mum recruits the Phantom of the Opera (stone-faced Gerard Butler, credited as simply The Stranger) to play Daddy, provoking many slushy soundtrack cues. The pat emotions contradict the lazily inconclusive life-goes-on ending, and the moral seems to be that kids just want to be lied to.
Recent Articles
More by Jessica Winter
FEVA Dream
The East Village's Howl festival collapses amid mudslinging, debt, and broken promises
Secrets and Guys
Spring awakenings lead to immature flashbacks
Minor Threat
Does 'The Daily Show' really make college students apathetic?
Built to Spill
Chapter two in the solitary woman trilogy
Blade Runner
Frothy fight scenes and anti-military bitch slaps
Site Search «
Most Popular
-
The Strangest Landlord-Tenant Relationship In Town? Stacked up in cubicles for decades, immigrants living in a Bowery tenement may have a very unusual situation.
-
The Pet-Death Business All dogs go to heaven. Yours will probably get there in an urn.
- We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse?
- On Michael Jackson's Mercifully Goofy, Cheerful This Is It
-
The Secret Life of Girls On the latest blog-rock sensation's improbable, somewhat verifiable backstory
| buy, sell, trade 10,398 | musician 3,579 |
| rentals 13,382 | jobs 2,100 |
| adult entertainment 35,447 | |
| classifieds | backpage.com | Post ads for free! | |
|---|---|