Happy Ending

* Spoiler Alert*

I sat next two girls during watching a British movie "Dear Frankie" at Jakarta International Film Festival.

It's a movie about a 9 year old deaf boy who has never known his father but his mom keeps lying to him by writing him letters as if they were from his sailor father. One day he hears that his father's ship is going to stop in his city and as a child who yearns for a father figure, of course he wants to see the man who writes him letters and tells him things about foreign countries. The mother has no choice but keeps lying to him by paying a stranger to act as the father. This stranger then falls for the sweet child and instead of agreeing on having one day with his fake child, he prolongs it into another day. On the second day they spend time together - Frankie the child, the fake father and the lying mother, not only there are scenes that depict how the fake father is genuinely keen on Frankie, but there are also sparks between the handsome stranger and the Demi Moore look-alike mother.

But this ain't a romantic movie, though there is a long kiss when they say goodbye. Hollywood may have turned it into some hot love story with some A-list stars.

But I'm glad this ain't a Hollywood product when a long kiss doesn't necessarily a promise of a life happily ever after, that when a good looking man looks into the eyes of a bodacious babe, there are more possibilities than ending up having steamy sex.

The two girls sitting next to me shrieked in disappointment when the movie ended without bringing the fake handsome father and mother together. The final scene only pictures Frankie and his mother sitting on a bridge in a very foggy morning. Just the two of them against the world once again after the fake father has left.

Simply no happy ending.