Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me

Summary Jonathan Donald, a wealthy, arrogant car salesman, is charged with drink driving and sentenced to 60 hours community service at the Moonbeam club for unruly kids. He makes no effort to hide his initial disdain and falls foul of the club organizer, young widow Laura, though the kids warm to him after he has taken them on a designer clothes shopping spree. In particular he befriends 'Fast' Freddie, so named for his skill at computer games, a teenager dying of a kidney disease, brought up in foster homes and for whom this will be his last Christmas. Helped by Laura's kindly mother Julia, Jonathan locates the boy's birth mother but she has no interest in reconciliation, so Jonathan and Julia develop a ploy, paying people to pose as Freddie's loving and long-lost family, ensuring that though this Christmas will be his last, it will be his happiest. Such is Jonathan's devotion to organizing the deception that he gets fired, winning Laura's eventual respect. Not everything goes to plan but at least Freddie can pass on, knowing that people care for him and, four months later, the Moonbean members, Jonathan and Laura meet to give him a lavish send-off. View more details

Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me

Directed : David Richards

Written : Chris Dunlop

Stars : James Weber Brown Ruth Kearney Laurence Fox Davood Ghadami

6.2

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Dec 26, 2011

Countries of origin : United Kingdom

Official sites : Official site

Language : English

Production companies : ITV Productions

Summary Jonathan Donald, a wealthy, arrogant car salesman, is charged with drink driving and sentenced to 60 hours community service at the Moonbeam club for unruly kids. He makes no effort to hide his initial disdain and falls foul of the club organizer, young widow Laura, though the kids warm to him after he has taken them on a designer clothes shopping spree. In particular he befriends 'Fast' Freddie, so named for his skill at computer games, a teenager dying of a kidney disease, brought up in foster homes and for whom this will be his last Christmas. Helped by Laura's kindly mother Julia, Jonathan locates the boy's birth mother but she has no interest in reconciliation, so Jonathan and Julia develop a ploy, paying people to pose as Freddie's loving and long-lost family, ensuring that though this Christmas will be his last, it will be his happiest. Such is Jonathan's devotion to organizing the deception that he gets fired, winning Laura's eventual respect. Not everything goes to plan but at least Freddie can pass on, knowing that people care for him and, four months later, the Moonbean members, Jonathan and Laura meet to give him a lavish send-off. View more details

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Dec 26, 2011

Countries of origin : United Kingdom

Official sites : Official site

Language : English

Production companies : ITV Productions

Photos

Comments
Welcome to juqing comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Login to display more comments

Edit Focus

So Close to Home

So Close to Home

Maggie, a professional women in her 30s, is in the sleeping compartment of an overnight train to Sydney. Maggie is a workaholic who drowns her loneliness in a busy world. Unable to relax, she pulls out her laptop. But on this night, Maggie's lifestyle of extreme order and isolation is disrupted when a 14-year-old Albanian girl silently demands her seat and Maggie is forced to travel backwards. The next morning as Maggie anxiously prepares to meet her estranged mother, Ramona, she is disturbed to realize that the girl, Azra, is following her. To Ramona's incredulity, Maggie invites the stranger home and there Azra begins to reveal a deep secret. Ramona's world of quiet suburbia, where novelty letterboxes front the neat yards, is an unlikely scene for a clash of language, culture and family turmoil. But as Azra reveals she is a refugee from Kosovo, the fragile walls of suburban familiarity begin to crack. Her family shattered by war, all Azra has to hold on to is a hand-made postcard of the Opera House, which her mother sent from a detention center in Australia. Azra's past is glimpsed in a nightmarish memory, which is echoed by the childhood experience that Ramona later relays to her own daughter. These fragments within the story add a personally poetic layer to the underlying politics of exile and belonging. Both emotionally troubled, Maggie and Ramona struggle to deal with the stranger. Ramona is highly critical of Maggie, who in turn resents her mother's overbearing ways. Their relationship is turned on its head, when Azra'search leads to a surprising and ultimately moving discovery. In the current climate, where the issue of asylum seekers has polarized opinion, So Close To Home is a remarkable depiction of the ironies and challenges involved in the idea of strangers. What begins as a story of boundaries is soon transformed into an exploration of the bonds of family and in particular, motherhood.

All Filters