'Dear Frankie' a letter-perfect drama about mother, son
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Last week at SIFF, the comedy "Touch of Pink" turned out to be a sweet story about the love between a mother and her son. Now, Shona Auerbach's wistful drama "Dear Frankie" (11 a.m., Cinerama), from Scotland, provides another variation on that theme. Nine-year-old Frankie (Jack McElhone) lives in a seaside town with his mum Lizzie (Emily Mortimer) and grandmother. A deaf child who lip-reads "like a champ," he writes letters to his absent father, not knowing that it's Lizzie who answers them.
Family secrets eventually emerge, as does a helpful stranger (Gerard Butler) — but Auerbach, a first-time director, deftly avoids sentimentality. Andrea Gibb's screenplay often achieves a kind of lyricism, particularly when Lizzie answers, in a brief and perfect sentence, the question of why she has continued with the deception. (I won't destroy for you the pleasure and surprise of Mortimer's reading of that line. Know, though, that it will touch your heart.) "Dear Frankie" never quite goes where we think it's going, but by the end, we realize that Auerbach has taken us exactly where we wanted to go.
Elsewhere at SIFF today:
Egyptian
11 a.m.: The Secret Festival continues. Shh.
1:30 p.m. and 5:15 p.m.: Spanning 1966 to the present, Marco Tullio Giordana's six-hour epic "The Best of Youth" unforgettably introduces us to several generations of an Italian family. The sheer volume of the film (originally made for Italian television) may seem daunting, but it's well worth the time investment; the payoff, in the film's devastatingly beautiful final scenes, provides an emotional lift as great as anything I've seen onscreen in years. Part 1 screens at 1:30; followed by Part 2 at 5:15 (separate tickets required). Actress Maya Sansa will be present for the screening.
9 p.m.: "Eager Bodies," a first feature from Frenchman Xavier Giannoli, is a love triangle centering on a terminally ill young woman (played by Laura Smet, daughter of musician/actor Johnny Hallyday and actress Nathalie Baye).
Broadway Performance Hall
1:45 p.m.: Co-directors Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski will attend the screening of "Born into Brothels," winner of the documentary audience award at Sundance earlier this year. The film, made over a period of years, looks at the lives of the children of prostitutes in Calcutta's red-light district.
4 p.m.: Polish director Jerzy Stuhr (who made the charming camel movie "The Big Animal" a few years back) directed and co-wrote the comedy "Tomorrow's Weather," about a man who has spent much of his life in a monastery and returns to society to find a very different world.
6:15 p.m.: Local filmmaker Peter Vogt directed, edited, produced and composed the score for his documentary "Up Thornton Creek," about the ongoing dispute in Shoreline between local activists who live near an active salmon run and the out-of-state development company that wants to build apartments there.
9:15 p.m.: The provocatively titled documentary "Orwell Rolls in His Grave," directed by Robert Kane Pappas, examines the ways in which the media promote and protect the powerful — as in their coverage of the 2000 presidential election, the Enron crisis and the timely release of American hostages from Iran more than 20 years ago. Pappas will attend the screening.
Harvard Exit
11:30 a.m.: Canadian actor Benjamin Ratner ("Last Wedding") makes his directing debut with "Moving Malcolm," a comedy about a man trying to win back the heart of his former fiancée (Elizabeth Berkley). Ratner will attend the screening.
2 p.m.: "Harry and Max," an incest drama about two teenage brothers, may well cause some controversy — and director Christopher Munch ("The Sleepy Time Gal") will be on hand to answer questions after the film.
4 p.m.: From Chile, Andrés Waissbluth's "Los Debutantes" is a thriller about two brothers (again!) moving through Santiago's underworld of sex and crime. Waissbluth, who makes his feature debut with this film, will attend the screening.
6:30 p.m.: Ulrike Koch ("The Saltmen of Tibet") wrote and directed "Asshak, Tales of the Sahara," a drama about the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara desert. Koch will attend the screening.
9:30 p.m.: Hiner Saleem's "Vodka Lemon," set in snowy Armenia, examines the lives of four characters left destitute upon the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Pacific Place
11:15 a.m.: The always marvelous Richard E. Grant (watch for him in "Bright Young Things" as well) co-stars with Philippe Torreton in "Monsieur N," Antoine de Caunes' historical thriller about the ultimate fate of Napoleon.
2 p.m.: From Brazil, 'The Man Who Copied" stars Lázaro Ramos ("Madame Sata") as a teenage dropout who works at a photocopy shop, dreaming of a different life.
4:30 p.m.: "Paper Clips," from Elliott Berlin and Joe Fab, is a simple and deeply affecting documentary about a Tennessee middle-school class that learned about the Holocaust by collecting 6 million paper clips. It's a quiet, low-key film with a welcome message of hope. Fab will attend the screening.
6:30 p.m.: It's almost the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday (June 16, to be exact ) — the day on which Leopold Bloom memorably walked the streets of Dublin in James Joyce's groundbreaking novel "Ulysses." In celebration, Joyceans — and film lovers — can enjoy Sean Walsh's "Bloom," a careful, thoughtful screen adaptation. Stephen Rea has the perfect note of apologetic melancholy as Bloom; Angelina Ball is appropriately earthy as his wife Molly.
9:30 p.m.: From Israel, Savi Gabizon's "Nina's Tragedies" won best film at the Israeli Academy Awards last year. The story of a shy young man secretly in love with his aunt, the film is subtitled "A Very Sad Comedy."
Cinerama
11 a.m.: Shona Auerbach's lovely mother/son drama "Dear Frankie" starts the day (see above).
2 p.m.: Count on SIFF to bring you the unexpected — this time, it's a Bollywood version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth." Indian director Vishal Bharadwaj's "Maqbool" follows the play closely — and, as per usual with Bollywood films, throws in a little song and dance.
3:45 p.m.: Stephen Fry's "Bright Young Things" is such a pleasure to watch, it almost seems sinful — which seems appropriate to a film about decadent society in Jazz Age Britain (based on the Evelyn Waugh novel "Vile Bodies"). Though a bit overcrowded with characters we never quite come to know, the film zings with energy and style, and its cast is a dream, particularly Peter O'Toole, Jim Broadbent, Emily Mortimer (worlds away from her "Dear Frankie" role) and star Stephen Campbell Moore.
6:15 p.m.: Actor, director, author and all-around splendid fellow Stephen Fry is interviewed onstage by Gary Tucker in this special SIFF event, "An Evening with Stephen Fry." Fry, a Brit best known in this country for his brilliant performance as Oscar Wilde in the 1997 film "Wilde" (and also famed for his recurring role on the television series "Blackadder"), will share anecdotes, film clips, and, undoubtedly, jolly good stories.
9 p.m.: A big day at Cinerama winds up with "Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman," Takeshi Kitano's stirring drama about a famed swordsman. Filled with swordfights, spurting blood, severed limbs and even a little dancing, the film won the coveted audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com
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