Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Florian Zeller
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell,
Olivia Williams
With the aid of fellow playwright Christopher Hampton,
Florian Zeller adapts his much lauded play
The Father for the screen in his equally acclaimed
directorial debut.
A portrait of dementia, the film is an unsettling yet sensitive
exploration of senility that portrays the condition in almost Lynchian
terms as characters blur and fade into one another to the point that the
viewer might believe they themselves are being driven mad.
It opens conventionally enough, with doting daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) breaking the news to her octogenarian father Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) that she's moving to Paris, and thus will have to move him into a
nursing home.
Anthony has, to put it bluntly, lost the plot. He's been living with
Anne and her husband Paul (Rufus Sewell) since refusing to accept
the assistance of home helpers, whom he inevitably accuses of stealing
the many watches he loses, but he believes he's still in his own
flat.
At least that's how it seems. We're never really sure what to believe
as Zeller injects us into the fractured psyche of his aging protagonist,
with a cast of actors playing various versions of themselves. Anne is
introduced in the form of Colman, only to later appear played by
Olivia Williams. Similarly, we meet Paul first in the form of
Mark Gatiss before he later appears as Sewell. We're never sure
who is whom, or where the drama is actually playing out. To confuse
things further, a carer played by Imogen Poots is referred to as
being the double of Anthony's daughter, who died several years before
but who he believes is still alive.
Along with placing us in the muddied head of Anthony, it's the
character of Anne who acts as a cipher for that segment of the audience
who find themselves with an aging parent and the prospect of one day
finding they no longer recognise the child they raised. Anne has clearly
done her best by her father but the old man treats her with something
approaching contempt, constantly comparing her to her late sister. So
put down is she by her father that when he makes the minimal effort to
be nice – complimenting her hair – she breaks out in the beaming smile
of a woman who has been taken back to the happier days of her childhood
when she was the one being looked after. That Anne is played by Colman,
one of the most likeable actresses around, makes her guilt-induced
suffering all the more difficult to witness.
As great as Colman is however, this is very much the Anthony Hopkins
show. After decades of appearing in straight to video schlock, it's
thrilling to see him given the sort of meaty role an actor of his
standing deserves. His Anthony is by turns scary, funny, charming and
ultimately pathetic in a final scene that's so well acted it almost
feels as if special effects are involved as Hopkins appears to regress
to childhood before our eyes. One of the marks of a great actor is how
well they can convey the act of thinking. Here, Hopkins spends much of
his time running thoughts through his head and coming up empty as his
memories betray him. In those expressive, heavy-lidded eyes we see a man
desperately trying to maintain his dignity, but for whom time has beaten
him down.
For anyone either approaching old age themselves or with loved ones at
such a milestone, The Father is a sobering, difficult
watch, more disturbing than any horror movie. It's a warts-and-all
glimpse of a future we're all set to face, and that's if we're lucky
enough to make it that far. But watching Hopkins face his own mortality
through a role that must have given him pause for thought is enough to
get you through the darkness, like a senile parent suddenly remembering
a long forgotten childhood detail.
The Father is on Netflix
UK/ROI now.