Frank the Rat

• 2009
• Drama
• NR

• Watchlist

Two siblings hit the road in hopes of mending their broken family in this independent comedy-drama. Billy (Derek Cecil) is a twenty-something slacker who lives in a run-down Brooklyn tenement; he doesn't have a job or a proper apartment, but in exchange for running odd jobs the landlord lets him have a room in the basement. Billy doesn't have many friends and his closest companion is his pet rat, who he's named Frank, after his father. Billy's abusive, emotionally distant and hard-drinking dad abandoned the family when he was a young boy, and in many respects Billy has never recovered from the trauma. One day, Billy receives a very unexpected visit from his younger sister Lisa (Fiona Dourif). While Lisa wasn't as scarred by Frank's abandonment, she still feels the hurt and can't make sense of her relationships with men. After abruptly breaking up with her fiancée, Lisa finds Billy and tells him its time they tracked down Frank (Kevin Hogan) and clear away the emotional debris that's been weighing them down for years. Billy reluctantly agrees, but finding Frank is harder than they expected, and when they do locate him, nothing goes the way they hoped. Frank The Rat was the first feature film from writer and director Jim Cozza.