Critic’s Pick:  ‘Frank’ strangely softens an icy Michael Fassbender

“Frank’s” strangely engaging fun is in great measure due to the agility of Michael Fassbender’s physicality, rather than the intensity of his face. Not that the Fassbender face is anything less than fascinating, but whimsical it is not. Rock hard, its chiseled planes making those icy blue eyes even chillier, so effective in so many films like “Shame,” “Inglorious Basterds” and his fierce Oscar-nominated portrayal of a sadistic slaver in “12 Years a Slave.” But in director Lenny Abrahamson’s indie, Fassbender is cast as an experimental alt-rocker whose face is forever hidden under a big round head that never fails to remind me of Jack in the Box ads. You might think acting inside that giant paper-mache head, with its perpetually expressionless state, would bring a kind of self-consciousness. But at least in “Frank,” it brings the actor freedom, his body becomes softer, vulnerable, sweeter, more emotional because of it. So touching is the performance, in fact, I can’t wait to see a softer, vulnerable, sweeter Fassbender with his etched face and icy blue eyes completely exposed.