The Father (2021)
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The Father Movie Review
The Father is a 2021 drama film directed by Florian Zeller and starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. It’s a surprisingly powerful, authentic movie.
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“They don’t even speak English there“
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It follows an aging man who must deal with his progressing memory loss. There have been many Hollywood movies about dementia and Alzheimer’s, but they were all kind of the same. Well, that is until this film came along and changed everything. Never did I expect to say this, but this movie is one of the best Best Picture nominees of 2020/2021 and one of the best movies about this subject matter so far.
The reason why it is better than so many films before it lies in its approach. Most other movies just focus on depicting this illness without making the audience truly feel what it is like having dementia. The Father did the latter. Florian Zeller adapted this film from his own play and the screenplay here is incredible. The writing is very sophisticated and the film is rather cinematic for a material that was on the stage previously.
This is a drama, but it might as well be called a psychological thriller as it makes us the audience feel what the protagonist is feeling. None of the film’s narrative involving Anthony is to be believed. All of it is vague and full of twists and turns and false premises. You have one scene where he is talking to his daughter about her leaving for Paris to be with her new boyfriend and immediately afterward you have a sequence where he is talking to her current husband of many years with no Paris or boyfriend in sight. It’s all very disorienting and confusing, which is the most incredible trick up the film’s sleeve.
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There is one other amazing thing in this movie and that is of course the performance from Anthony Hopkins. He is truly back with this fantastic work after so many cash grabs where he was in some of the worst blockbusters today. This role was perfect for him and he shows us that he is one of the best living actors today.
He had to do so much here and he excelled in everything that the role demanded of him. This is basically a string of many different roles, thus it was a great opportunity for him to show his acting prowess. At first bitter, then confused, then angry, then sad and helpless as a child, Hopkins killed it playing all of these emotions, and I personally wouldn’t mind if the Academy gave him another Oscar.
Olivia Colman is also pretty good, but much less memorable than Hopkins. Others are also good and serving their purpose as their elusive presences. The film is interesting for showing the side of both the man with an illness and his daughter suffering going through it. It was an admirable thing to showcase both, but to me her part was definitely inferior and not as well developed as his part of the story.
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The Father is well scored and fitting the narrative at hand throughout. The pacing is also pretty good and the film is only around one a half hours long, which is unusual for a drama, but it was a superb choice that led to an even bigger engagement for regular audiences, and this is surely a movie that everybody should see at some point. The mood of the movie is incredibly dark and confusing while the ending is truly heartbreaking.
