The Father

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on May 14, 2021.

(M) ★★★★★

Director: Florian Zeller.

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams.

Another wild charades sesh round at Anthony's.

Yep, it's sad. That's what they're all saying about this one, isn't it? Well, they're all right. The end will wreck you.

But what people aren't saying about The Father is how cleverly deceptive it is; about the rugs it pulls out from under you to put you inside the slowly deteriorating mind of Anthony, the dear old dad brought to devastatingly vivid life by Hopkins. Writer-director Zeller keeps the audience increasingly off-balance, yet blends his trickery with real emotion, and it's genius.

The story is simple enough. It's the tale of Anthony and his daughter Anne (Colman), and her struggles to care for him as his dementia worsens. Be prepared - this one is going to hit you where you live.

Obviously, Anthony Hopkins is a legend. He's a god-like master of his craft - watch this excellent breakdown of a single Westworld scene that summarises his greatness. His uncanny abilities are on full display in The Father. He runs through every emotion - some subtle, some devastatingly bold - and always makes the film feel real, despite its cryptic contrivances. From wildly charming to defiantly angry, from lost to funny, from broken to confident, he commands the screen. A posthumous Oscar win for Chadwick Boseman would have been wonderful, but to lose to the great Anthony Hopkins in this amazing role is nothing to be sneezed at. Sorry, Mr Boseman.

Colman is also great in the far less flashier role of Anna, the caring but put-upon daughter. She inhabits the strange place between love and resentment as she tries to help someone who doesn't want to be helped. It's a deceptively tricky role, and she nails it.

The other big star of the film is Zeller's direction. Working from his own 2012 play Le Père (and Christopher Hampton's English translation), he makes the most of disjointed time, replayed scenes, deceptive sets and decor, and his talented cast to keep the audience guessing. It's often confusing, but that's the point.

(Side note: did you Le Père had already been turned into a film in 2015 called Floride and starring Jean Rochefort and Sandrine Kiberlain? No, me neither.)

But for all its trickery, The Father has at its heart real emotions, and powerful ones at that. It fools us in many ways, but it never fakes its feeling. When its gut-wrenching finale arrives, you will be broken. There will be tears. It's unavoidable. But it's the pay-off for a masterfully made film that is a feast for both the brain and the heart, and a work-out for the tear ducts.