The Father

This is an article “The Father” by Marc Primo

Release date: 27 January 2020 (Sundance)

Director: Florian Zeller

Language: English

Production Companies: F comme Film, Trademark Films, Cine@, AG Studios, Film4, Orange Studio, Canal+, Ciné+

Producers: David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi, Philippe Carcassonne, Christophe Spadone, Simon Friend

SPOILER ALERT–--Fresh from his recent Best Actor win at the 93rd Academy Awards, which also saw many firsts in its long history, Sir Anthony Hopkins had few words to say when he belatedly received his award in his homeland of Wales in April. What the actor mainly told movie fans was that he never expected such an honor at the ripe old age of 83. His millions of adoring fans were quick to disagree as the fabulous actor awed audiences as usual in his performance as an old patriarch suffering from dementia in French novelist, writer, and director Florian Zeller’s heartbreaking masterpiece The Father.

Though the award was rather contested given that fans of another screen heavyweight (the late great Chadwick Boseman) were demanding for a posthumous recognition, movie critics sided with the Academy on how much more powerful Hopkins’s character was in taking audiences to a highly experiential journey into the darkness and the horrors of cognitive decline.

In the film, Anthony (Hopkins) seems to have fallen prey to life’s comedy of errors when he notices that he frequently loses sight of his watch. Adding to his misery is his growing paranoia against the people around him and those slowly creeping into his head. At times, Anthony can’t seem to remember where he is or who he’s talking to, even if that someone was one of his two daughters, Anne (Olivia Coleman) who has sacrificed enough to constantly care for him in his old age.

Losing his watch countless times when all along it was always where he had hidden it out of habit (safely in the bathroom from the hands of his allegedly thieving caregivers) perfectly signifies how Anthony has lost the concept of time and memory. He would at times wake up in his pajamas thinking it was morning, only to find out that he was being called by Anne and her husband for dinner. On certain days, he would be talking to a total stranger (Olivia Williams) only to find out that it was really Anne who seemed to have come back from the store multiple times after buying some chicken for dinner.

What Hopkins was able to achieve as an actor in The Father is to allow audiences to enter his frailing psyche and experience firsthand what it is like to have dementia. Viewers are subjected to a series of terrifyingly confusing scenes that only the stable mind can stitch together. But the film’s sequences are far from confusing as Zeller expertly allows the audience to drift in and out from Anthony’s mind to an external point of view. Somehow, what worked for its stage adaptation also proved to be impeccable on film, and how Hopkins delivered his performance all the more helped.

The Father effectively takes the elements of psychological horror and drama and mixes the two to come up with an emotion-filled film that will make viewers question their own minds. It shows how it feels to be stuck in the deepest enclaves of one’s selected memories while struggling to make sense of reality– all while free falling to inevitable helplessness that’s quite similar to that of being an infant. Many would probably think that The Father is a similar version of 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, only its plots happen in real life and are more terrifying.

Going back to Hopkins’s performance, he proves to be the perfect choice in portraying the aging Anthony in a way that while the latter’s mind has gone haywire, there are a few cognitive instances when he realizes that something is terribly wrong with him. He forces himself to take on a strong and stubborn stance, only to drive himself into a wall of misconstrued realities---and audiences will absorb the impact well.

Kudos also to Olivia Coleman who knows when to steal the show from Hopkins, aware of which parts in the film’s dynamics she can truly shine. There is also a big scar in Anne’s character as to how she must accept that her younger sister Lucy (Imogen Poots), who has long died yet still lives and occupies a great space in Anthony’s mind, was the favorite, leaving her to be the one with many flaws. Imagining how it hurts to be left with the responsibility of taking care of a not-so-sweet parent and with no choice but to sacrifice dreams of a young thriving life in Paris is heavy enough for Coleman’s character to impart to the audience. As expected, Anne’s own relationship with her husband (both played by Rufus Sewell in certain scenes and Mark Gatis in others), becomes problematic to the point that contempt is bred towards Anthony.

Another memorable exchange happens during the middle of the film when Anthony meets his new caregiver Laura (also played by Imogen Poots). He was immediately smitten by the young girl the same way he continues to adore his youngest daughter. He starts impressing her with some charm, humor, and a bit of tap dancing only to end his performance with a paranoid tongue-lashing that somehow frightens Laura off. It’s an episode that presents how erratic a demented mind works and one that naturally serves as the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Soon enough, Anne finds herself nurturing her dream of Paris once again as she finally decides that Anthony is far better off living in a nursing home.

In conclusion, The Father is similar to a difficult puzzle wherein audiences will find themselves looking for the right pieces to complete the picture. There’s claustrophobia when you take on both Anthony and Anne’s perspectives. But the puzzle gradually slides into transiting from how Anthony perceives things, to the hopeful prospects of whatever is left in Anne’s life. As she breaks free from the chains of moral and familial obligation, Anthony gets further trapped in the confines of dementia, calling for his mother as he finally acknowledges how he is “losing his leaves, the branches, the wind, and the rain”.