While Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy’snew feature,Róise & Frank, is a small, spare comedy-drama, it was blessed with what is known in the business as a high concept. It’s summed up in its press release packet as “A widow who has given up on life becomes convinced that a stray dog is the reincarnation of her Hurling-loving husband,” and the film’s trailer presents that premise with equal shares of winning sentiment and smile-inducing amusement.
Set to hit theaters via distribution by Dog-Friendly Release in the U.S. on March 31,Róise & Frankstars Irish actress Bríd Ní Neachtain, who also appeared in Martin McDonagh’s acclaimedThe Banshees of Inisherin, as the aforementioned widow of the title that we are introduced to in the first few seconds of the trailer in silhouette. We see her waking up, putting on the coffee as the sun comes up through the curtains, with our first actual image of her being in a picture on a bedside table of her with her husband from sometime in the past.
Róise Makes a New Friend
As Róise gets ready for her day in her small cottage in Ring, a town within Gaeltacht na nDéise in Waterford, Ireland, we hear voices speaking in Gaelic expressing concern. “How’s your mother,” a woman asks, and receives the reply from a man’s voice of, “Fine.” The disembodied voice of the man continues. “Mam and Dad married when they were twenty, she just can’t accept that he’s gone.”
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Then, in the most blatant, heart-tugging manner, the film puts forth its crucial concept card when Róise walks outside of her home into a burst of sunshine, with a clamoring cymbal filling the film’s score, to begreeted by a dog, a beautiful Benji-looking mutt standing in a field directly in front of her.
After informing us thatRóise & Frankwon the Audience Choice Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Best Ensemble at the Dublin International Film Festival, and the Stolman Audience Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival, the trailer settles into giving us splices of its narrative beginning with our leading lady talking to her son Alan (Cillian Ó Gairbhí, the man’s voice heard at the top of the trailer) at the town’s cemetery.
Róise asks Alan, “What was the last thing your father said to me?” to a worried reaction on his face. With conviction, she answers her own question: “Our story isn’t over yet, my love. He’s done it Alan – he’s come back!” This gives way to emotional piano tinkling, and a series of shots that illustrate her son saying to his baby in a subsequent scene after Róise’s reveal of her revelation/delusion that “Your Granny’s gone mad.” To the delighted faces of children through the back window of a school bus, we see our heroine get into some unspecified trouble with the law, with sirens blaring, out on the roads of Ring.
“That’s not a proper animal restraint,” a mustached copper tells Róise through her car window, “And the dog shouldn’t be in the front seat.” A happy, confident Róise responds with great warmth, “Frank, Frank is his name.” This, the studio felt, is the place to declare in big Arial letters that the Irish Times thinks that this is, “A genuinely delightful film.”
Frank the Dog Gets in Some Hurling with the Kids
The trailer, keeping the uplifting tone going, then cuts to some kids playing catch with the dog. “Hey, Mikey, is that dog teaching you hurling?” This introduces another element into the story aswe see the dog, Frank, getting into the game of hurling as a mascot or maybe even a mentor/coach to the local team. This is because, as one observer can be heard remarking, the dog has “The spirit of the greatest hurler the parish has ever seen.”
Another sports fan goes even further to declare, “Here he comes the best hurling coach in Ireland!” This is punctuated with another big quote, this time from The Business Post, which states that the film is “Warm, witty and wonderful.”
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The chatter of the bemused townspeople who are learning to accept Róise’s situation continues with an unidentified woman saying, “Sounds to me like that dog is cheering her up,” and a bit of gossip from a male, “And I hear she buys steaks for the dog.” That line is illustratedby a quick montageof Róise preparing what looks like restaurant-quality steaks for Frank to another man in voice-over muttering, “That sounds fairly special, alright.”
We are then taken back to Róise’s son Alan in an excerpt from a scene where he has an exchange with the policeman that his mother dealt with earlier. The cop ask, “That dog isn’t Frank, is it?” Alan responds, “Do you know Frank?” The cop with a knowing smile answers, “I do indeed. And I know his wife too.”
The trailer wraps up poignantly with Róise back home at the end of the day telling Alan, “Listen, you’re clever, but there are certain things in this life that you don’t understand.” As we see shots of Róise and her dog, who may or may not carry the soul of her departed husband enjoying each other’s company inthe lush Irish scenery, we hear one last thought from our now enlightened leading lady. “You don’t know what happens to us when we die, Alan. Nobody does.”
So there you have, a one-minute and 41-second trailer for the acclaimed, award-winningRóise and Frank, that brings to life a simple but high concept, introduces us to an appealing cast of characters (and one animal), and asks us to suspend disbelief for the power of belief in ever-lasting love.
