The Father was originally a play written by French playwright Florian Zeller. With the film, he teamed up with famed writer Christopher Hampton to make the film more adaptable to the screen and he also made his directorial debut on the project.
The film is about a very simple but tragic topic: losing your loved one to Dementia and having to watch it unfold...but the catch is that most of it is from the point of view of the person who is actually suffering from the disease. The actor tasked with this challenge is none other than Sir Anthony Hopkins.
I don't want to mince words here and I would rather just be quick and to the point. This will be a fairly quick review in the long run.
Sir Anthony Hopkins gives the greatest performance of his career.
It's that simple.
You could argue that it is at least his best since The Remains of the Day and The Silence of the Lambs but I think what Hopkins achieves here proves that he is worthy of his legendary status. His work as the aptly named Anthony is one of for the books. He conveys quick moments of charm that hint to the vibrant man he once was, he is utterly convincing when simply cannot accept that something isn't as he thought it was, and when he cannot take the toll of not remembering who he is, he will completely break your heart.
Hopkins has never really cared about the whole award season process and he certainly has no desire to push for the recognition now...but I think Hopkins' performance is more than worthy of an Academy Award. He is going to end up losing to the late Chadwick Boseman but I do think what Hopkins achieves in this movie is nothing short of a masterclass in acting.
Olivia Colman plays his daughter Anne and I think this performance is the perfect film follow-up to something like The Favourite. In her native UK, Colman has been a fan favorite for over a decade mainly due to her work in stuff like Peep Show and Hot Fuzz but she gave us truly volcanic work in movies like Tyrannosaur and TV series such as Broadchurch. The range that Colman has shown in her career puts her up there as a modern day heir-apparent to great British legends like Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, or Eileen Atkins. In The Father, she gives a truly lovely and subtle performance as someone who is essentially helpless at watching her father slowly disappear. I think her Oscar nomination is richly deserved but I suspect that the nomination will remain the reward.
I sort of find myself at a very weird writers block when it comes to writing about this film. I feel like a lot of what makes the film work is more powerful if you actually watch it occurring rather than me describing it to you.
It goes without saying that a film that is dealing with dementia is going to be depressing but the way that Zeller utilizes multiple actors to step in briefly to play characters and jumping around to various hours of the day makes us just as disorientated as Hopkins must feel. There were moments where I simply wasn't entirely sure what might be real and what wasn't.
I would also say that the movie unsettled me greatly if only for how it managed to go into darker places. One such moment involves elder abuse (in which Hopkins truly gives a heartbreaking performance) and then at the end of the film, when Hopkins is suddenly in a nursing facility learning that his daughter Anne is in France. This scene almost has Hopkins reducing to childhood as he cries out begging for his mother to come comfort him...but thankfully his nurse is there...the same woman he originally mistook for his own daughter earlier in the film.
The Father is something of a mind trip and if you really want to stretch it, you could argue that it is some kind of a psychological horror film. It is sort of ridiculous claim to make but I cannot deny that the film did scare me and at how this kind of thing happens all the time to many, many people.
It is a difficult but rewarding watch.
RATING: 4.5/5
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