My Bonnie Lies [To Me] Over The Ocean

Glasgow and its environs is the perfect setting for Dear Frankie, a dark and lovely movie that manages to be uplifting without actually delivering a clearly happy ending.

Frankie's dad is a seriously absent bad guy. His mom has decided to perpetuate the fantasy that he is a very loving, very busy merchant seaman by writing letters to Frankie signed "Da." Silly, it would seem, but the painful circumstances of their lives are so realistically portrayed that it's not hard to imagine why she would go to such extremes to bring a little light into his life. When a ship rolls into port with the same name as the ship the Dad's supposedly on, she's in danger of being found out, and takes steps to avoid it.

This is an ideal movie for single mothers not only because of the subject matter. It's quiet and meditative and leaves you feeling you have spent a little time with Frankie's small family as they talk and worry and gently tend to the everyday details of their lives. A wonderful time-waster for those wee, small, lonely hours. There's a good looking guy in it, but whether or not he rescues them is never really answered. You might find yourself watching it once, then watching it once again, just to figure that out.

Directed by Shona Auerback; Pathe Pictures; 2004

Glasgow cutter ship courtesy Library of Congress