The Father (2020, dir: Florian Zeller)

[sevendaughters]

Out last year but finally in cinemas for a limited run comes this - well, tale isn't the right word - series of scenes starring Anthony Hopkins as a man with dementia who thinks his family are trying to prise him out of his lovely W9 flat.



If you like ACTING then you're in for a treat - Hopkins is on good form, plus Olivia Colman and Mark Gatiss turn up and do their thing ably. If you like WRITING then it is a well-wrought piece that takes that sort of Nolan/Kaufman tying up loose ends thing and moves it into a smaller-scale, smaller-stakes piece. If you like EMPATHY then it is full of that, for both dementia sufferer and family.

If I had to nitpick I would say that it is hard to convey dementia in film grammar without lapsing into guesswork and some cliche. It comfortably stays the right side of daft, but for me it wasn't 100% successful.

Anyone else seen?

[Johnny Textface]

At first glance it seems Oscar-baity. Is it overly sentimental or nice and dry?

[sevendaughters]

At first glance it seems Oscar-baity. Is it overly sentimental or nice and dry?

a little Oscar baity, but it's not full on 'they all had a heart of gold' like Three Billboards or something, and the film is formally more interesting.

[Bazooka]

It was fine, Good Actings, but would never watch it again unless I get dementia and forget I'd seen it the first time. It doesn't overstay it's welcome, and I guess the 'trick' so to speak played on the viewer to imitate the man's confusion works, as mentioned it's hard to convey visually.

[neveragain]

I thought it was very good indeed and the way the chronology twists round and mutates is very interesting. Really puts you in there. The last scene is a corker.

[Lost Oliver]

Thanks for the recommedation, I fancy this now. Even if Coleman is in it.[nb]Just because she's in literally everything.[/nb] Hopefully it's not a cuddly version of Haneke's Amour . I saw that 7 years ago, once, and I remember it as if I lived it.

[jobotic]

My mum went to see this. Said it was really good but she regrets going. Both her parents had dementia and she's cacking it about getting it herself.

[Small Man Big Horse]

The lazy bastard of a director has announced that his next film will be called "The Son" - https://variety.com/2021/film/news/vanessa-kirby-florian-zeller-the-son-1234992362/

[Old Nehamkin]

The lazy bastard of a director has announced that his next film will be called "The Son" - https://variety.com/2021/film/news/vanessa-kirby-florian-zeller-the-son-1234992362/

What's next, the fuckin holy ghost. wheeeeeeeyyyyy

[sevendaughters]

bet it isn't a patch on the film of the same name by the Dardenne Bros

[zomgmouse]

Just got round to catching up with this. I'd read the play so knew what I was in for with the

Spoiler alert

shifting people and rooms and things

[close]

but it was still really well done, particularly towards the end, carried beautifully by Hopkins in particular.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

The lazy bastard of a director has announced that his next film will be called "The Son" - https://variety.com/2021/film/news/vanessa-kirby-florian-zeller-the-son-1234992362/

Zeller has an informal theater trilogy that consists of The Father, The Mother and The Son.

[non capisco]

My mum went to see this. Said it was really good but she regrets going. Both her parents had dementia and she's cacking it about getting it herself.

My mum has it, as I'm sure I've bollocked on about enough on here before. This film wrecked me, don't know why I thought it wouldn't. Hopkins is incredible, it's up there with his performance in 'The Remains Of The Day' for me.

[SteveDave]

Watched this last night and it was a spooky cello score away from being a high end horror film for the most part.

My wife was in tears throughout as her mum has, if not dementia, then a fucking awful memory (possibly exacerbated by too much of everything in the sixties) that regularly sees her forgetting to wash and just turning up at our door with no memory of how she got there or why.

[Noodle Lizard]

I just watched this myself the other night. I went in expecting Oscar bait, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was much more than that.

The horror descriptions really aren't far off; I found it downright harrowing, and that's without any known family history of dementia or much direct experience of it. There are plenty of other films concerning Alzheimer's etc., but this remained admirably cliché-free. The performances are all brilliant, Hopkins especially, it's wonderfully shot and its directing "tricks" are subtle, but very effective.

Liked it a lot. I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again, though.

[Keebleman]

Hopefully it's not a cuddly version of Haneke's Amour .

It's not cuddly, but it is much inferior to Amour.  For me this film felt more like an exploitation of dementia than an exploration of it.  Using the now completely played-out device of "Is this real or not?" meant this was at the level of Christopher Nolan.

Mind you, it was at that level in terms of filmmaking too.  It felt properly cinematic and didn't look quite like anything else.

[Noodle Lizard]

It's not cuddly, but it is much inferior to Amour.  For me this film felt more like an exploitation of dementia than an exploration of it.  Using the now completely played-out device of "Is this real or not?" meant this was at the level of Christopher Nolan.

Oh, I don't know about that. I think it's pretty clear after the first twenty minutes or so that it's not meant to be ambiguous. We're certainly not left with any "did this really happen?" questions by the end of it. It does start to get a bit repetitive in the final act, where it seems like everything that happens is almost immediately revealed to have not (quite) happened, which sort of lost its power after the first few gos around.

Things like the chronology of the dinner scene are very cleverly-written and staged, I thought, and Rufus Sewell is a properly horrible bastard (he's just got the face for it). The fact that

Spoiler alert

his counterpart is the perennially pleasant Mark Gatiss (who I don't think ever even played a "baddie" in League of Gentlemen with the exception of Hilary Briss)

[close]

is an interesting casting choice, especially when it comes to "that bit".

[lauraxsynthesis]

This weekend I'm looking after my 92 year old grandmother-in-law who

Spoiler alert

has dementia and doesn't know what's going on from minute to minute. I'm thinking about this film and that it is really helping me understand how distressed and frightened she often is. The film's a real downer but

[close]

I'd recommend it for educational purposes.

[Oosp]

Yeah, this was devastating.