The Father

D: Florian Zeller

Lionsgate / Film4 / Canal+ / F Comme / Trademark / Cine@ / AG Studios / Ciné+ / Orange Studios (David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi, Philippe Carcassone, Christopher Spadone & Simon Friend)

UK/France 🇬🇧🇫🇷 2020

97 mins

Drama

W: Florian Zeller & Christopher Hampton [based on the play “Le Père” by Florian Zeller]

DP: Ben Smithard

Ed: Yorgos Lamprinos

Mus: Ludovico Einaurdi

Anthony Hopkins (Anthony), Olivia Colman (Anne), Rufus Sewell (Paul), Imogen Poots (Laura), Olivia Williams (The Woman), Mark Gatiss (The Man)

Florian Zeller adapts and directs his own stage play for the screen, with Anthony Hopkins delivering a tour de force performance as an elderly father who struggles with his own mental health and his relationship with his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman).

This film presents the subject of dementia from the title character’s point of view, as he goes through stages of denial and confusion as the fragmented narrative displays exactly how his mind is playing tricks on him, with some scenes & lines of dialogue being repeated and multiple actors playing the same character.

Unlike some stage-film transitions, especially those set in a single location, The Father really works as a film, and Zeller leaves subliminal clues as the film progresses which warrant this to rewatched.

Hopkins won an Oscar & Zeller’s screenplay (co-written with Christopher Hampton) also won, but this really should have been named Best Picture of 2020.

9/10