Dear Frankie

Director Shona Auerbach builds a mother-son relationship based on lies that are told, supposedly, with good intentions. However, things soon crumble as the result of mean spirits and selfishness. When Frankie was a baby, his seafaring father boarded the prestigious HMS Accra and began his endless, yet important, voyage on the open seas. Since the starry-eyed son never sees his brave and heroic dad, Frankie regularly writes him long letters, with his father responding. At least that’s what he’s been programmed to think: The boy’s father is actually a wife-beater, and the letters are really written by his deceitful mom, who left her husband years ago. When Frankie learns that the true HMS Accra will dock in his port city, the manipulative mother takes her fabrication to a whole new level by hiring a stranger to play Pseudo-Dad. Why not just tell Frankie the truth? Why create a life of lies for your unsuspecting son? Why see such a spiteful and distasteful film in the first place?