After meeting rave reviews at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (Kyle Smith of the New York Post described it as a “whimsical delight”), Lenny Abrahamson’s fourth feature ‘Frank’ will receive its highly anticipated release in the US this weekend. The film is a comedy about a wannabe musician who finds himself both in peril and in awe when he joins an electric rock band with a mysterious papier mache head wearing leader.
The feature is an Element Pictures/Runaway Fridge production for Film4, BFI, Protagonist Pictures and the Irish Film Board. It stars Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Abrahamson previously helmed ‘Adam & Paul’, ‘Garage’ and ‘What Richard Did’, all IFTA winners.
‘Frank’ currently has a ‘certified fresh’ status on Rotten Tomatoes with an impressive approval rating of 89%. Variety.com stated: “helmer Lenny Abrahamson puts the pic’s eccentricity to good use, luring in skeptics with jokey surrealism and delivering them to a profoundly moving place.” Recent reviews from USA Today and Indiewire.com have also praised the film, the former calling the feature “a catchy film” and the latter calling it “a sublime and strikingly original film.”
Besides the US market, the comedy has also sold to Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Italy, Scandinavia, Benelux, Portugal, Turkey, Israel, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Middle East and Singapore.
The screenplay for ‘Frank’ was written by Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan, with music by Stephen Rennicks. The film was produced by Ed Guiney, David Barron and Stevie Lee, with executive producers Tessa Ross, Katherine Butler, Andrew Lowe and Nigel Williams. Film4, the BFI and the Irish Film Board provided funding.
Read IFTN’s interview with director Lenny Abrahamson for the film here.
The film is no longer in Irish cinemas but the DVD will be released this September.
See the trailer below: