dual personalities

Gerard Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor who has appeared in an unusually varied array of films, most of them pretty bad. If he weren’t so darn good looking, I wouldn’t have suffered through half of them.

That may sound harsh, but really, think about it. Have you seen Lara Croft Tomb Raider, The Phantom of the Opera, 300, P.S. I Love You, Nim’s Island…the list goes on and on. I did like Machine Gun Preacher , and The Game of Their Lives was shot in St. Louis and was about a (true) St. Louis story, so it was bearable.

However, Gerard has made one movie that has redeemed his whole career and gives us hope for his future: Dear Frankie.

Dear Frankie (2004) is a film directed by Shona Auerbach and starring Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, and Jack McElhone. The screenplay by Andrea Gibb focuses on a young single mother in Scotland whose love for her son prompts her to perpetuate a deception designed to protect him from the truth about his father. It truly is a gem, and Gerard Butler is just right in the part of “the stranger” who pretends to be Frankie’s father. Would that he would play a few more parts in movies like this!

So I suggest we all watch Dear Frankie in honor of Gerard’s 43rd birthday. Have your Kleenex handy, because it’s a weeper (despite the feel-good cover art). I put it in the same category as Fried Green Tomatoes, another favorite of mine, which I cannot watch 10 minutes of before I am hopelessly weeping. Let me hasten to say, this is not a bad thing. Maybe what we need is a good cry.

Happy birthday, Gerard!