Dear Frankie

Scottish tearjerker about a woman, her deaf son, and the guy she pays to pretend to be Dad. Lizzie (Mortimer) has raised 9-year-old Frankie (McElhone) to believe that the father he doesn't remember is a member of a cargo ship crew, when in reality he was an abusive jerk that Lizzie left years ago. Of course, this means that she has to come up with a fake father on the spot, and finds a stranger (Butler) to fill the role, with the standard mom-falls-for-fake-dad, fake-dad-learns-to-like-his-fake-family results. Solid performances by all fail to make up for a bland, manipulative story.