Dear Frankie (2005)

The film opens with a single mother making another in an, apparently, long string of moves with her deaf son and mother in tow. The son writes and receives regular replies from his "father" -- away at sea for several years. It's spoiling nothing to say that it's actually his mother collecting the letters and responding to her son and that she soon finds herself in trouble when the ship Frankie believes his father to be on is scheduled to dock in their coastal town.

This films unfolds beautifully. We find out what we need to know when we need to know it -- there's not a withholding of information for shock value nor is there a ruining of the storytelling by giving us too much too soon. We root for this mother, this son, this family. As the credits rolled, I was filling in the "and then" portion of the story...just hoping I'm right.

A-