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100Wise and wondrous.
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88The bold long shot near the end of Dear Frankie allows the film to move straight as an arrow toward its emotional truth, without a single word or plot manipulation to distract us.
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88An endearing, occasionally sentimental story told with depth and substance.
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80The movie is filled with small moments of tenderness, insight and considerable wisdom.
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80Material that might have turned to standard dysfunctional family treacle in other hands is given stirring poignancy, warmth and emotional insight in Shona Auerbach's assured first feature.
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80Subtle and graceful directorial debut.
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75What could have been a sentimental train wreck emerges as a funny and touching portrait of three bruised people.
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75Doesn't revert to hairpin plot twists or other dramatic trickery to hook us in; Auerbach simply lets us live with her characters-which, it turns out, is reward enough.
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75Dear Frankie is a small movie with a big soul and no easy formula for the happiness of its big-hearted characters.
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75It is a sweet, wonderfully acted cameo of a movie about the lengths to which a lioness will go to protect her cub.
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75The film, with its painterly juxtapositions of dockside industry, green hills, and cloud-scudded sky, is full of misguided motives and fairy-tale fraud. But it rings true at heart.
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75The movie's still shameless; the difference is you don't mind.
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75Very well crafted and superbly acted. Whatever you may think of the idea, its execution is admirable.
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75For anyone who has ever had to balance what the heart yearns for against what the head insists must be, this film should hit home.
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75The movie has been shot with love and wisdom, and its implausible premise doesn't get in the way of a sweetness and honesty too rarely seen.
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75But as the story takes some surprising turns, it works like a slow infection: Patient audience members may find themselves awakening to the story in much the same way the characters awaken to their own capacities for tenderness.
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75The film tugs at us. And we forgive it its faults because it never loses sight of what it's supposed to be even though the story has a manipulative edge and maneuvers our feelings.
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70Mortimer is riveting as the sympathetic but flawed Lizzie.
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70While the film isn’t completely perfect, director and cinematographer Shona Auerbach shows that she’s a great new filmmaking talent.
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70On its own terms, Dear Frankie works much better than it really has any right to. Auerbach tells a small, contrived story, but gives it the weight of life.
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70"Miramax porn." The term refers to manipulative tearjerkers like Dear Frankie whose sensitive performances, along with a light dusting of grit, allow them to be marketed as art films. This one is clever enough to fool a lot of people.
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70Within this overly familiar trope, there's plenty of room for small surprises, not the least of which are delightful, understated performances all around.
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The film is soft and sticky, but it deserves a (small) audience. If you're in that peculiar kind of blue mood where you'd like to be just a bit bluer, Dear Frankie might be the right choice.
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63The end result is an unremarkable, unmemorable movie that deserves neither praise nor approbation.
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60Happily, the director and writer Andrea Gibb treat little Frankie with as much dramatic respect as the grown-up characters, and he saves the movie from killing sweetness.
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60Dear Frankie's surprises are few and low-key, but the story wraps up nicely.
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50Well acted, capably directed, not as substantial as it might have been.
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40I’m all for ambiguity, but Dear Frankie’s multiple dangling threads indicate incoherent storytelling, not profundity.
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40The movie’s glib trafficking in illness, death and pinched little faces to jury-rig our emotional responses (Gibb was inspired by the equally likable, equally pandering Czech film "Kolya") lost me at hello.
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30Somehow 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.
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16A Scottish weepie of such bathos and balderdash that it deserves a drinking game in its rotten honor.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 18
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Mixed: 0 out of 18
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Negative: 0 out of 18
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PaulD.8Contrived, but very touching movie that works because of capable direction and outstanding cast.
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JulieG.10
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PaulK.10