There’s so much that is moving about The Father. First and foremost, the screenplay adapted by Christopher Hampton (Oscar winner for Dangerous Liaisons, nominated for Atonement) from playwright Florian Zeller’s play, originally billed as a black comedy. In directing this film, Florian Zeller has stripped out comedic elements, simultaneously sharpening the realism of what it must be like to have dementia, reminiscent of what the film “Eternal Beauty” did for schizophrenia.
Brilliant acting accentuates the written word with a pair nonpareil in Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins. Olivia Williams and Imogen Poots are also fantastic. I was less thrilled with Mark Gatiss and Rufuss Sewell, but it could be because their characters were cold and abusive.
While plays turned to film can seem stifling (this year’s model for me was Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), The Father’s flat turned nursing home did not feel suffocating, a credit to the writing, acting and cinematography.
The Father will not make my top 10, for all the reasons the other films do, portraying more well rounded universal problems, themes and varied emotions.
“The Father”, the Hon and the Holy almost
