While Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy’s new function, Rose & Frank, is a small sparse comedy-drama, it was blessed with what is known in the industry as a high concept. It’s summed up in the press release 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 movie’s trailer presents that premise with equal parts of winning sentiment and smiles. . exciting entertainment.
Will hit theaters March 31 through distribution by Dog-Friendly Release in the US. Rose & Frank plays Irish actress Bríd Ní Neachtain, who also starred in Martin McDonagh’s critically acclaimed The Banshees of Inisherin, as the aforementioned widow of the title we are introduced to in silhouette in the first few seconds of the trailer. We see her waking up, making coffee as the sun rises through the curtains, with our first real image of her in a nightstand photo of her with her husband sometime in the past.
Róise makes a new friend
As Róise gets ready for her day at her tiny cottage in Ring, a Gaeltacht na nDéise town in Waterford, Ireland, we hear voices in Gaelic expressing concern. “How’s your mom,” a woman asks, and she gets the answer from a man’s voice, “Fine.” The disembodied voice of the man continues. “Mum and Dad got married when they were 20, she just can’t accept that he’s gone.”
Then, in the most blatant, heartbreaking way, the film brings out its crucial concept card when Róise walks out of her house in a blaze of sunshine, with a screaming cymbal filling the film’s score, only to be greeted by a dog, a beautiful Benji looking mutt standing right in front of her in a field.
After informing us Rose & Frank won 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 begins by giving snippets of the story starting with our leading lady who talk to her son Alan (Cillian Ó Gairbhí, the voice of the man heard at the top of the caravan) in the town cemetery.
Róise asks Alan, “What was the last thing your father said to me?” to a concerned expression on his face. She answers her own question with conviction: “Our story is not over yet, my dear. He did it Alan – he came back!” This gives way to emotional tinkling of the piano, and a series of shots illustrating her son saying to his baby in a subsequent scene after Róise’s revelation of her revelation/delusion that “your grandma has lost her mind.” Watching the delighted faces of children through the back window of a school bus, we see our heroine get into an unspecified run-in with the law on the roads of Ring, sirens blaring.
“That’s not a good way to detain animals,” an officer with a mustache 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, his name is Frank.” This, the studio believed, is the place to declare in large Arial letters that the Irish Times thinks this is “a truly delightful film”.
Frank the dog does some swinging with the kids
The trailer, keeping the uplifting tone, then cuts to some kids playing with the dog. “Hey, Mikey, is that dog teaching you how to swing?” This introduces another element to the story as we see the dog, Frank, coming into the game of hurling as a mascot or maybe even a mentor/coach to the local team. This is because, as one observer may be heard to remark, the dog “has the mind of the greatest pitcher the parish has ever seen.”
Another sports fan goes even further, declaring: “Here he comes, Ireland’s best hurling coach!” This is interrupted by another great quote, this time from The Business Post, stating that the film is “Warm, witty and wonderful”.
The chatter of the bewildered townspeople learning to accept Róise’s situation continues with an unfamiliar woman saying, “It sounds like that dog is cheering her up,” and a bit of gossip from a male: “And I hear she’s buying steaks for the dog.” That line is illustrated by a quick montage of Róise preparing restaurant-quality steaks for Frank, while another man mutters in voiceover, “That sounds pretty special, okay.”
We are then brought back to Róise’s son Alan in an excerpt from a scene where he is having a conversation with the police officer his mother had previously dealt with. The cop asks, “That dog isn’t Frank, is it?” Alan replies, “Do you know Frank?” The cop replies with a knowing smile, “Yes, indeed. And I know his wife too.”
The trailer ends poignantly with Róise at home at the end of the day saying to Alan, “Listen, you’re smart, but there are certain things in this life you don’t understand.” As we see images of Róise and her dog, who may or may not carry the soul of her late husband, enjoying each other’s company in the lush Irish countryside, we hear a final thought from our now enlightened leading lady. ‘You don’t know what will happen to us when we die, Alan. Nobody does.”
So there you have, a one minute and 41 second trailer for the critically acclaimed, award-winning Rose and Frankwhich brings to life a simple yet lofty concept, introduces us to an attractive cast of characters (and one animal), and asks us to suspend disbelief for the power of belief in eternal love.