Dear Frankie ('04).....A

"Dear Frankie" is everything that the recently reviewed "Millions" tries to be, but isn't. "Millions" tries to steal your heart by manipulation and fantasy. Sometimes this works, but most of the time it doesn't. All of that sweetness and charm in "Millions" eventually curdles into a cloyingly saccharine story of cheese and schmaltz that collapses because none of it appears connected. The sad result is that very little of it ends up being believable.

These two movies, other than both being British imports and both offering sterling performances by the two young male stars, have little else in common.

There is a self conscious effort to be cute and whimsical in "Millions," but I was not sold on the concept. It all appears to be too forced and too manufactured, especially the villain who pops in and out of the story like the puppet in a jack in the box.

On the other hand, "Dear Frankie" does not have that "Look at me and see how cute I am" attitude. We see real people here, and they are not always lovable. Neither do they seem to be performing for the camera, so we quickly identify with them as their story unfolds. The movie allows us to be an unseen presence in a developing family drama, albeit one with a rather implausible solution. We buy into this because we have ourselves often seen that Life sometimes offers implausible solutions.

"Dear Frankie" has the same charm and sweetness as "Millions," but in this movie everything works because the story is so well told that we want it to work. The roles are played so convincingly that we are swayed into believing in the reality of these personalities.

This is the best kind of movie, which is a movie that has us believing that this small story is truly woven from the cloth of life. I often refer to these small movies as "Vermeers," as something of the souls of the characters is captured by the film and saved forever in a cinematic palette.

"Dear Frankie" is also comparable to another recent Brit import, "The Wedding Date." That poorly reviewed movie stars Debra Messing in a likable performance, but the movie is sabotaged by an unbelievable and very trite romantic spin on the hooker (in this case, a male gigolo) with a heart of gold who turns out to be otherwise perfect in every respect.

Most of us are more cynical, and if something is too good to be true, it practically always isn't. We were suckered into believing that this could actually happen in 1990's "Pretty Woman," but she was Julia Roberts and that was then and this is now.

The pleasant switch in "Dear Frankie" is that Lizzie Morrison (Emily Mortimer) really does not want a relationship with the hired stranger (Gerard Butler), and she means it. She wants a "daddy" for her son to be hired for just one day and then disappear back into the woodwork from where he came. Like us, she realizes that there must be something odious about a person who would accept money to play this kind of a role.

The stranger otherwise looks perfect as he is, after all, Gerard Butler, but this is of little consequence to Lizzie. Here is a virile man who oozes testosterone, but he is like Gary Cooper as he is the strong silent type. Besides, as far as we are concerned, his motives have to be suspect since he is being paid to lie to a very lovable little kid who also happens to be deaf. We wonder what kind of a guy could do this.

"Dear Frankie" sneaks up on us like those soft little furry bunny slippers that used to make our feet feel so warm and comfortable on the cold tile bathroom floor in the middle of winter. Like those silly bunny slippers, the premise of this movie sounds somewhat trite and silly, but after a while it sinks in that we really love this film, and, more importantly, that we really care about these people.

Well, why not? They are basically good people who are trying to get by the best way they can in a rather cruel world that has not dealt them the best of hands to play.

Lizzie loves her son more than anything and will do anything to protect him from any more interference from her ex-husband, a man who is shown later in the movie to have a volatile temper of volcanic proportions. Her mother, Nell (Mary Riggans), had initially prompted her move into hiding from her ex-husband some six or seven years before and they have been on the run ever since.

Nell has always made sure that Lizzie stays one step ahead of his efforts to reconnect with his ex-wife and son by studiously reading the personals to make sure that there aren't any ads placed there by him. Her husband's inquiries as to her current location start to bear fruit, so Nell and Lizzie know that it was time to leave and start life anew somewhere else.

They have been through this routine many times before. Their few possessions easily fit into a large van and soon they are settled in their new apartment in Glasgow near the wharf. One of the side effects of this unsettled life on the run is that Lizzie and her family can never settle down to a normal job and have a normal life with all of its daily routines. She has only lived in each place long enough to have a post office box and to know where the unemployment office is so that she can go and collect her weekly dole.

In their spartan life Lizzie has decided that Frankie, like other young men, needs to think of his long absent father as some kind of a heroic figure and a role model for him to admire and emulate. So she invents a tall tale about his being a sailor on a freighter that is steaming around the world. Lizzie is able to pull off this deception with relative ease since Frankie was only three years old when she left her husband. Because he was so young at the time, he has few memories of his actual father.

To play this long absent husband's role to the hilt, Lizzie answers Frankie's letters to his "dad," which are sent to a nearby post office box, with imaginatively glowing tales about his life aboard the ship. Right now his most recent letter tells about the ship crossing the Equator heading towards South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. The brass rails on the ship are so hot from the sunshine that they will burn his hands if he accidentally touches them.

Frankie loves these letters from his make-believe dad. As a further treat for her son, Lizzie spends part of what few resources that she has to enclose a single foreign stamp along with each letter. He is thrilled that the most recent letter has a stamp with a Great White Shark on it, and he quickly replies to his father as to how overjoyed he is to receive this special stamp, now his favorite one. Over the years he has amassed quite a collection of foreign stamps. Besides further encouraging his geographical education, his stamp collection also becomes a source of envy to his few visiting schoolmates.

Lizzie would be more than happy to continue this charade forever, but her mother knows better. Nell keeps warning her that she had better start leveling with Frankie or there will surely be a day of reckoning. Her dire predictions are always ignored, so Nell mutters to herself under her breath between puffs on her many cigarettes.

In a flight of fancy Lizzie picks "Accra" as the name of the ship from the name of the capital of Ghana. It is only later that Frankie discovers that there really is a ship named Accra, so he is inspired to put a map of the world on the wall of his tiny bedroom and plot the progress of the Accra with little pins showing its current location and expected destination. In the process of this effort he becomes very well educated in geography, something that is a rare commodity among children today.

Life becomes almost normal for the Morrisons. Frankie enters a school where he quickly shows his scholastic aptitude, especially at geography. He is much less talented at sports, so he ends up playing the goalie on the grade school football (soccer) team. He does not make much of an effort to catch any of the balls rocketing past him into the net.

He even makes two new friends, one a competitive boy who is always making a bet with him about something or other and the other a shy young girl with dark hair who plays in the local amateur orchestra.

Since his "dad" is a seaman, Frankie has also been inspired to study the fauna of the oceans. Many afternoons are spent at a local pet store filled with aquariums where he can admire the saltwater fish and sea horses that leisurely swim and float around in their new surroundings. With his enhanced view of the denizens of the deep, Frankie makes a conscious decision to become a vegetarian, but with a caveat. As Lizzie later remarks, "Frankie is a vegetarian who doesn't like vegetables." Dinners mostly consist of the national dish of fish and chips, only for Frankie it is served without the fish.

Lizzie meets Marie (Sharon Small), who is another woman about her age. Their friendship blossoms when she proves herself to be a loyal friend, especially when she helps Lizzie to obtain a part time job at the same store where she works. The two of them then get to pal around together and become even closer.

Marie has a boyfriend and the two sometimes invite Lizzie to the local pubs to celebrate the weekend. Most of the time, though, she refuses as she has been burnt so badly by her former relationship that she has crawled into a self imposed isolation, especially from men.

Having a special needs son who only communicates by signing and an occasional note has only left her further adrift from most normal relationships. She is like a mother bear looking after her cub as nothing else really matters to her but his personal welfare.

The family grows comfortable in their new home, as modest as it is. Having few friends and maintaining a low profile is helpful so that few will notice the occasional newspaper ads in the personals column inquiring about a missing "Lizzie" and her son and make the connection. It is usually Nell, but sometimes Lizzie who calls the number listed and hisses to whoever answers to "leave us alone."

They have a favorite spot that is high on a hill overlooking the harbor at Glasgow. Frankie also loves the view as everything is so serene and beautiful from this distant perch with its view of the ships in the harbor to the more distant bays and then on to the low hills in the background.

It is Nell that notices the newspaper article first as she enjoys her daily read. The ship, the "Accra," is due to dock in Glasgow in three weeks. She shows the article to Lizzie with a face that reads, "Well, what are you going to do now?"

Lizzie has been trapped by her little white lies. She has two unenviable choices. She can open up and tell Frankie that it was all a bunch of lies, the whole package, the ship, the letters to him, the returned mail from a "loving dad," the whole shebang. This is not a viable solution as it places her in a position of being extremely deceitful for having betrayed her beloved son over a period of several years.

The other solution, while less drastic, is more problematical. She needs to find someone who can play the role of a temporary dad to Frankie for the one day that the Accra will be in the harbor. Sitting on a park bench one evening with Marie and her boyfriend, Lizzie confesses her problem to her one and only friend and Marie promises to be of help.

Frankie is informed of the impending arrival of the Accra at the Glasgow harbor, which is something of a surprise as it was expected to arrive at the Cape of Good Hope in a few days. The ship makes a sudden 180 degree turn and all the flags on his map are quickly reversed. The chance to finally meet his dad helps to obscure the fact that the ship has somehow moved thousands of miles from where it was supposed to have been in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

Several days later Lizzie is sitting in a downtown coffee shop and it is apparent that she will be meeting someone there as each male visitor is eyed intently. She is examining a bald man as he approaches her table, but he goes on to greet the girl nearby with a hug and a kiss. Out of the blue a shadow looms over her and a deep male voice asks her if she is "Mrs. Morrison."

Gerard Butler offers a strong performance in this movie and a delight after his chewing the carpet as the Phantom in last year's rather dreadful, "The Phantom of the Opera." If you are not well acquainted with British actors, you might not even have guessed that it is the same person. Butler is another reason why this movie clicks so well. He plays a brooding sort of a guy who wants to open up, but he takes his time to do so. Needless to say, he is perfect for this role as a match to the equally moody Lizzie Morrison.

The romantic in all of us wants them to get together, but this movie is not nearly so simple as that. After all, the real ex-husband will have to be dealt with at some point in time. Furthermore, if Lizzie should ever want to become involved with this handsome stranger, then she would of necessity have to confess her deceit to Frankie. Even after we have decided that we want them to be together, we can understand Lizzie's reluctance to entertain such a notion.

I hated it when this movie ended. This is one of those rare movies that drew me completely into the world of its characters. I wanted to spend some more time with these people to see how they will get on with their lives. Somehow, they've become like new friends who I wanted to know a little better. It's a shame that there isn't much of a chance for a "Dear Frankie, Part II." I suppose that we will all have to make up our own ending for Lizzie and the Stranger.

"Dear Frankie" is the inaugural directing debut of Shona Auerbach, who was also the cinematographer for this film. On both scores she is to be highly commended for giving us such a gem of a movie. Don't miss it!