The Frame

Patrick is a young Irish boy who before very long becomes Patricia. His story is about more than just his attempts to get people to accept him as a her; his quest for identity and his lost family (he was abandoned on a church stoop as an infant) is played out against the backdrop of the early years of the Troubles, as his friends get more and more involved in IRA factions while he does his best to keep from getting involved in things that are too “serious.” There’s a lot of heart to the film, yet it never gets overly sentimental or stops being fun. There’s a tough-to-find sweet spot between hilarity and tragedy, and hilarity that masks tragedy, and director Neil Jordan and actor Cillian Murphy found it with this film. It isn’t a masterpiece, but it is a really well-done indie-type Irish film.
Well Above Average