Frank Movie

Office drone Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) struggles to write songs and lacks inspiration until he gets swept into the orbit of oddball bandleader and mental-hospital veteran Frank (Michael Fassbender). Based loosely on the life of Frank Sidebottom, a British cult character who always wore a fiberglass head atop his own, Frank begins as a whimsical fairy tale, then turns into a harrowing but redemptive outsider adventure. With the soulful Gleeson and a sweetly menacing Fassbender (under a giant helmet-head) at its center, the movie never loses its acerbic edge or its oversize heart. A-

• By Kyle Anderson