Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 37 minutes
Director: Florian Zeller
Quick Impressions:
What a sad movie! I don’t know where to begin! If Chadwick Boseman hadn’t tragically died young of cancer, I’ll bet the Oscar discussion right now would be, “Boseman is fantastic in his first nominated performance, but Anthony Hopkins is raw and riveting, and Riz Ahmed is intense and emotive. It’s too hard to predict a winner in this category! This is going to be a nail-biter right up until Oscar night.”
Of course, Chadwick Boseman is going to win the Best Actor Oscar this year, and he deserves it, no question. I just re-watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom over the weekend to show the film to my daughter and my dad. Boseman’s performance is something special. Doing work like that, he would have been nominated no matter what. But if Oscar voters felt they would have more opportunities in the future to honor Boseman, then this would be a much more competitive Best Actor race because Anthony Hopkins deserves to win, too. (It’s too bad there can’t be a tie, but I can’t imagine any realistic scenario in which half of the people don’t vote for Chadwick Boseman. Maybe Oscar voters will surprise me, but…they won’t.)
Olivia Colman also deserves to win. (Her performance is certainly strong enough.) I hope she doesn’t, though, simply because forcing Glenn Close to lose to her again so soon after their Best Actress showdown in 2019 seems too cruel.
But forget about the Oscars for a minute. (I’ll try. It won’t be easy. I’m pretty obsessed at the moment.) Though nominated, The Father almost certainly won’t win Best Picture or Best Actor, and it probably won’t win Best Supporting Actress, either. But films are about more than just winning Oscars. This one is about a man suffering from dementia, and it’s one part soul-draining tear-jerker like Amour and one part mind-bending thriller like Memento. It allows us to experience the terrifying world of a man who can’t keep track of where or when he is, who is around him, and what he is supposed to be doing from one minute to the next. He can’t even keep track of his watch, though he relies on that as his one remaining reliable way of interpreting time.
The completionist in me wanted to see The Father as soon as possible because without seeing it, I couldn’t finish my Oscar write-ups of Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Picture. Now that I have seen it, I can think of at least one more compelling reason to watch The Father. It’s an excellent film.
The Good:
Hopkins gives his best performance in some time (which in his case is saying something since he works steadily, and he’s always good). He’s even better here than he was last year in The Two Popes, when he gave such a fantastic turn (sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes charming) as Pope Benedict. Just as his Benedict was by turns adorable, aggravating, and awe-inspiring, his character in this film, fittingly named Anthony, is equally multifaceted and full of surprises. That’s why I think Hopkins would be a worthy winner of Best Actor for this. His versatility is on full display. We fully feel his daughter’s pain. We see Anthony’s terrifying charm, his exasperating irrationality, his cutting cruelty, his endearing helplessness. Not every actor can play all of those states equally well, let alone make it look as natural as Hopkins does here.
His character is named Anthony (and also shares a birth date with the star) because French writer/director Florian Zeller wanted Hopkins in particular to star in the screen adaptation of his hit stage play Le Pere. Apparently, Zeller could imagine no other actor in the role, so I guess it’s a good thing that Hopkins was bowled over by the elegance of the script and said yes.
I’m always impressed by the bravery of actors who take on work like this. Think of Emmanuelle Riva in Amour. How stressful must it be to be an older person in your right mind portraying someone your own age, no longer in her right mind. Hopkins is doing the same thing. The character’s name is even Anthony. (Imagine if Riz Ahmed had a long family history of people going deaf their 40s, then agreed to play a man going deaf in his 30s). Even if I had the talent of Hopkins (which obviously, I do not), I wouldn’t have the nerve to play a role like this. It would trigger so much anxiety. I would be sure that focusing so much on having dementia would give me dementia (either through conversion disorder or irony). The whole prospect would make me so uneasy.
Hopkins is just astonishing in this role. He never seems like he’s hamming it up. Even when his character is hamming it up, the behavior looks so believable for someone in his condition. My maternal grandmother managed to stay sharp as a tack until she was about eighty-four, and then she went into surprising and rapid mental (and physical) decline. (After her death, we began to suspect that she had been suffering from a series of small strokes.) But much in Anthony’s behavior reminds me of my grandma near the end of her life.
And Olivia Colman really, really reminds me of my mother being stressed to her limit by not feeling equal to care for her. My grandparents had a horror of nursing homes, so my mom didn’t want to put Grandma in a home or a hospital. But after a while, she began to realize that she was simply unequal to the task of caring for her, day in and day out. She continued to care for her, but she experienced the kind of perpetual strain that I saw all over the face of Colman’s character, Anne, in this film.
The relationship between Hopkins and Colman feels extraordinarily realistic. Her love for him (despite his often exasperating and sometimes cruel behavior) is so touching. Equally touching is the way that he needs her. The film handles the complexity of their relationship so well. They squabble, bicker, banter. In some ways, he’s making her miserable. But she’s even more miserable at the thought of abandoning him, and so is he. His illness causes her such distress, but she remains eternally responsive to his distress. There’s one moment when he actually thanks Anne that just about melted my heart.
The rest of the cast is good, too. The supporting cast, in fact, was much more recognizable than I had expected. Everything promoting the film seems to stress Hopkins and Colman, but other famous names/faces include Mark Gatiss, Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, and Imogen Poots.
The Father features some gorgeous music, operatic, swelling. (I think much of this is existing classical compositions rather than an original score). It’s also nominated for Adapted Screenplay, Editing, and Production Design. The Production Design nomination I really get. There’s something crucial about the way the rooms in these scenes are set up. Basically, you can’t tell this story without an awareness of the physical space. Well, I mean, I guess you could do it setting and prop free in the dark. But the arrangement of the rooms, the furniture, the wall coverings, etc. means a lot to both Anthony and the audience. There’s importance to the design of the (disconcertingly non-static) flat.
Best Scene:
Anthony’s initial meeting with Laura, the carer, is so delightful to watch. For a while, Anthony is turning on the charm, and, of course, Hopkins has riveting charisma, but Hopkins is even more riveting when Anthony suddenly becomes cutting. In this segment, Hopkins gets to turn his star power up to 110 as Anthony blows away Laura (Imogen Poots) with his unbridled charm. Then, just like that, his mood changes, and he’s terrifying, borderline cruel, vaguely menacing. (And his particular manner of cruelty makes it pretty impossible to tell if he’s been planning to be cruel the whole time. Was this a sudden change of mood, or has he been carefully laying a trap?) When he’s being charming, Hopkins is flamboyant and fun. The quickness of his turn in mood makes us remember that this is the man who won his first Oscar playing Hannibal Lecter. It’s also extremely realistic. If you’ve ever been around anyone with dementia, you’ve surely seen behavior like this before.
Also incredibly touching is the brief moment when Anthony unexpectedly thanks his daughter.
Best Scene Visually:
I like the way we periodically orient ourselves by looking out Anthony’s window.
Also well done visually is the moment when Anthony becomes convinced that his son-in-law has stolen his watch. He doesn’t say anything at first. There’s something almost adorable in the fact that he believes he’s being subtle. All interaction between Paul and Anthony fascinates me. I’m still trying to puzzle out the exact dynamic of their relationship.
Best Action Sequence:
Anthony’s first interaction with Mark Gatiss when “Anne” comes home with the chicken becomes increasingly bewildering as it goes on, not just for him, but for us, too.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Anthony Hopkins:
Hopkins’s final scene in the film (played with Olivia Williams) reminds me of that fantastic, emotional breakdown by Tom Hanks at the end of Captain Phillips. (How exactly did Hanks not get an Oscar nomination for that?) Hopkins makes Anthony so vulnerable here, and I am convinced that the wrong actor simply couldn’t play the scene at all. Attempted by a less gifted thespian, this moment would look ridiculous, maybe even risible. It could so easily veer into ungainly melodrama. Our humanity, of course, makes us feel for the character, so the audience would probably respond with pity and sympathy even if the moment didn’t quite work. But Hopkins makes it look real, natural. It’s so well done and so difficult to pull off. If I tried to play a scene like this, for example, the audience would laugh. They wouldn’t feel sorry for the character. They would feel sorry for me, making a fool of myself because I’m unequal to the demands of the material. My inability to play this tricky moment convincingly would take everyone out of the drama. Instead, with Hopkins, we get the work of a naturally gifted actor who has spent a lifetime studying and honing his craft. He’s magnificent. If Chadwick Boseman hadn’t died, Hopkins would probably win his second Oscar here. (It’s not that Boseman isn’t excellent. It’s that people would say, “It’s his first nomination. He’s young. He’ll have another chance.”)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Olivia Colman:
Hopkins gives the best performance in the film, but he has no chance of winning an Oscar for it this year. Colman does. (I don’t expect her to win, but she always could.) Colman’s performance made me remember the stress and frustration of my own mother as my grandmother slipped into dementia (possibly caused by a series of small strokes). Being the caregiver to someone who can’t properly appreciate you is such an agonizing job. As I watched Colman’s perpetually distraught face, I kept thinking to myself, “I hope my father doesn’t lose his mind.”
Colman is a master of subtlety in this role. The slightest movements of her face convey such profound, complicated emotions and such nuance. I love her best in the scene when her father is meeting Laura for the first time.
The Negatives:
I wish I knew for sure what was going on with Rufus Sewell’s character. For quite a long time, I suspended judgment, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But after a while, it was hard not to come to the conclusion that he was a horrible person. I just wish I could be sure. The problem with passing judgment on the actions of any character in this film is that we see things from Anthony’s perspective, and people with dementia also sometimes suffer from paranoia, delusions of persecution, hallucinations of abuse. So I’m not sure if Paul was really a complete jerk, or if, possibly, Anthony simply picked up on tension and manufactured some of Paul’s more openly abusive moments. I wish we had some way of knowing for sure just quite how bad Paul was. His frustration on his wife’s behalf, and his desire to protect her is understandable. Sometimes someone less emotionally invested has to step in when a caregiver has reached the end of her rope but is unable to extricate herself from the situation because of emotional ties. I understand that this whole thing is putting tremendous stress on Anne, and she can’t advocate for herself and for her father equally at the same time. So at first, I assumed that Paul was simply trying to protect his wife. But then I started to suspect that he was simply pouting about not getting to take his vacation. And then things got really bad. I wish I had some more objective view of Paul’s attitude and behavior. (It’s hard to trust the impressions of someone with a mental health issue, and yet, to ignore that person’s take on the situation could result in that person’s continued abuse.)
In general, the film left me with a lot of questions. I wanted a clearer chronology in the end. I have the sense that we have been watching events remembered. Otherwise I can’t account for the garbled nature of their presentation. This feels like trying to date an ancient manuscript. Either Anthony has the power to predict the future, or we’ve been watching him trying to sort through memories of what has already happened in the past. (My daughter and I are reading our way through Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles for Lent.) I suppose there aren’t clearer answers to my questions. I should probably just be glad that I don’t experience my own life in the way Anthony experiences his (which I am).
One other small complaint is that I think Laura probably needs either much more job experience or further training. For someone in her line of work, she makes some enormous missteps. (That’s less a critique of the film than a critique of Laura, the fictional character. You’re welcome for the free advice, Laura!)
The biggest thing I can say against this film is that while it’s touching, it isn’t exactly uplifting, more depressing. If you have a parent who is growing old, or you plan to grow old yourself, just remember that everyone dies, and some people lose their minds before they die. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to meditate on that, Florian Zeller. (In all seriousness, it’s a beautiful film, but if you’re already feeling crushed by the bleakness of your inevitable decline and death, you might save it for another time.)
Overall:
Anthony Hopkins gives a magnificent turn as a man with dementia in Florian Zeller’s brilliant, Oscar-nominated film, The Father. If you’re a fan of Hopkins, surely you’ll want to watch this, one of the greatest in a lifetime of great performances. Hopkins won’t win the Oscar this year, but you never know about his co-star Olivia Colman. If, however, Glenn Close wins the SAG, then Colman wins the Oscar again, that would really be awfully sad for Close. Colman does gives an excellent performance, though.