Shona
Auerbach’s ability to wring something resembling an honest-to-God
performance deserves an award for miracles. This is a manipulative
tear- jerker, with a hearing impaired boy as the lead character.

It
is rare that a film can make us cry (more than once) without ever
feeling sentimental. This, thoroughly involving and beautifully filmed
Scottish drama, is written with sensitivity and honesty. It really digs
into the inner lives of its characters. Each one is a bundle of complex
insecurities, secrets and hopefulness-the kind of people we can really
identify with. And the cast is excellent.

A marvellous Emily Mortimer( Bright Young Things, Young Adam) is Lizze Morrison, an exasperated Scottish mother who keeps her son Frankie ( Jack McElhone, Young Adam)
on his toes through constant relocation to keep him away from his real
father. The young boy who has never met his father thinks he is away at
sea, and writes him with thoughts and hopes for a future re-union.

There is a moment, late in the picture, where a normally silent Frankie speaks to his new father (Gerard Butler, The phantom of the Opera).
Butler assumes the role of a fake dad giving a performance that is
palpably delicate when it comes for the character to soften and welcome
Frankie into his heart. Moments like Frankie being lifted up in the air
in celebration are quietly played out in hushed reactions and
observance.

Supporting characters are
all vivid and strong enough that we get the real feel of them, from the
strong willed gran (Riggans) to Frankie’s hilarious school friends(
Brown and Johnson).

Andrea Gibb’s script, with is calm and kind hearted charms, will be its selling point when it’s released countrywide on March 4th.