The review is brought to you by Kathy Kaiser

FRANKIE – Rated PG-13 – 1 hr. 38 mins.

DIRECTOR:  Ira Sachs

WRITERS:  Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias

STARRING:  Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, and Jeremie Renier

As we meet the exquisitely beautiful French actress Francoise Cre’mont, aka Frankie, (Isabelle Huppert), she has ventured to Sintra Portugal with family and friends in tow, including her husband Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson), in an attempt to free her mind, and soul, from the life-threatening illness she is forced to face yet again.  As Frankie’s best laid plans to spend some much-needed time with her Daughter Sylvia (Vinette Robinson) and her family, and Frankie’s son Paul (Jeremie Renier) too, aren’t coming to fruition exactly as she had hoped, it does seem her inclination to invite close friend Ilene (Marisa Tomei) to join them, might just be what the doctored ordered, to save this trip of a lifetime…

I give FRANKIE a rating of DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY:  Although this film did receive a shout out at the Cannes film festival this year, and at the Toronto film festibal too, but I am not sure what the viewers there were watching, because for me, FRANKIE became more mundane and depressing with each passing frame.  This fact is sad, in so many ways, because Isabelle Huppert is one of the most beautiful actresses EVER, and her acting is sooooo much better than this material would allow.  I also was looking forward to some exceptional work this time from Gleeson (I love watching him in Mr. Mercedes on the Audience Network), and seeing Tomei and Kinnear returning to the big screen was pretty exciting too going in, but also sad is the fact that none of them were given any material that they could leave their mark throughout this film either.  Even the exquisite beauty of Portugal was short-changed throughout this somber and melancholy tale of family disconnect and illness.  I was hoping early on that this film might have some potential, but when it was all said and done, FRANKIE doesn’t resonate, on any level, with the story that could have been created from the gathering of such incredible actors, and the memorable scenes they could have created too, with the beauty of Portugal as its backdrop…thus leaving me no choice but to give FRANKIE one of the worsts reviews I given this year, as i tell you to stay home as to not waste your time, or your hard earned cash, on seeing this film ;(