The Father (2020)
Directed by Florian Zeller
A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages and, as he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.
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Julianne Moore won her only Oscar in 2014’s STILL ALICE in which she portrayed a very sympathetic victim of early-onset Alzheimer’s.
…if you think Julie Christie and Julianne Moore nailed the encroaching horror of Alzheimer’s in their very fine movies – “Away from Her” and “Still Alice” respectively…
Why is it that this cramped family saga should have a reach and a clutch that were denied to other studies of dementia, like “Away from Her” (2006) and “Still Alice” (2015)?
Julianne Moore won an Oscar in “Still Alice” (2014).
There have been some powerful movies about this subject matter (e.g. Still Alice, Away From Her, Iris) but writer-director Florian Zeller tackles it from an unexpected viewpoint – through the eyes of the sufferer.
There have been some good dramas about people sliding into dementia, like “Away From Her” and “Still Alice,” but I confess I almost always have a problem with them.
In its way, “The Father” is as emotionally rigorous as “Amour,” Michael Haneke’s Oscar-winning film about aging in all its inevitable harshness.
The best film about the wages of aging since Amour eight years ago…
…movies like Michael Haneke’s Oscar-nominated Amour, a devastatingly bleak film about dementia…
There have been many films that have dealt with dementia from “Away From Her” to “Amour” to “Still Alice,” but we’ve never seen a movie handle the subject quite like “The Father.”
Add The Father to the list of profoundly moving films about dementia/Alzheimer’s: Away from Her, Amour and Still Alice.
…yet while watching his decline is sad, it’s never searing the way it was with the superior French film Amour.
(Supernova, a more heartfelt look at dealing with the disease, is out in a few weeks)…
If you like this, try: “Away from Her,” “Still Alice,” “Still Mine,” “Dick Johnson is Dead,” “The Roads Not Taken,” and “Supernova”…
Though The Father and Supernova both explore the tragic consequences of dementia, Supernova is much more focused on that external drama, the impact of the diagnosis on the relationships one has and those relationships’ future prospects.
'It feels like a horror film': New dementia dramas 'Falling,' 'Supernova' aim for truthfulness over tears…
It arrives fast on the heels of the Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth-led Supernova, in which a writer facing early onset dementia looks ahead to his future and sees only bleakness, a loss of everything that makes him who he is.
Dementia is a subject that’s been pretty well explored in cinema — “Supernova” is just one recent example…
Among recent movies, “The Father” would make quite a haunted-house triple bill with “Relic” and “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” which also dramatize cognitive decay via compulsively mutating decor.
Last year’s Relic did an excellent job of depicting the crushing effects of dementia on a family but, like so many films, it shied away from the interior life of the person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
The ending reminded me very much of Relic, a horror film about an old woman with dementia, and how it affects her, her daughter and granddaughter.
Last year, Natalie Erika James Relic manifested dementia as a house-bound monster terrorising its occupants.
The past year saw a spate of films that delved into the mental state of their damaged characters. “Relic” looked at dementia through the lens of a horror movie, using an ever-changing, ever-shrinking haunted house as a metaphor for the fractured mind of its protagonist.
In vain will you seek a metaphor that brings home the horror of senile dementia in a new way, like the one Relic had this past summer.
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There have been some powerful movies about this subject matter (e.g. Still Alice, Away From Her, Iris) but writer-director Florian Zeller tackles it from an unexpected viewpoint – through the eyes of the sufferer.
The Father should feel like something we’ve seen before, whether with Hopkins himself in 2005’s Proof, or 2006’s Away from Her, or 2001’s Iris.
The film joins an esteemed list of excellent films dealing with the affliction of Alzheimer’s, such as Still Alice and Iris, and easily registers as one of the best and most affecting.
Many films about dementia often focus on a partner or family member who has to witness the decline of a loved one; Away from Her (Sarah Polley, 2006) and Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001) being two films from the last twenty years that stand out for handling this perspective particularly well.
'It feels like a horror film': New dementia dramas 'Falling,' 'Supernova' aim for truthfulness over tears…
Like Lance Henriksen in “Falling,” another recent and memorable take on this very subject, Hopkins dominates the space by becoming intimidating through not having control over his senses.
Over the last year, several movies — including "Dick Johnson is Dead" and "Falling" — have touched on dementia and its effects, but "The Father" is in a class of its own.
Zeller accomplishes what Viggo Mortensen could not in Falling, another film about a man with dementia and his son trying to help him.
Structured like a skipping record and edited like a freeform Memento, Zeller’s feature plays a clever trick that makes us question our own experience of events, simulating a taste of Alzheimer’s nasty tricks.
The only film I can think of offhand doing anything even close to this is Memento from 2000, which first off, isn't complicating things with the apparent real-time gimmick, and second off, is presenting a movie disease in the context of a thriller.
It's like Memento, but with less forward drive.
It tells a different story; a rigorous alternative to On Golden Pond (1981)…
…his complaint that the French “don’t even speak English” reminded me of a similar turn by Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond.
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Tres décadas después de haber ganado el Oscar por su interpretación como Hannibal Lecter en el escalofriante thriller The Silence of the Lambs, Sir Anthony Hopkins nos da una cátedra de actuación de principio a fin, conmoviéndonos con su extrema fragilidad y vulnerabilidad.
When he turns on Imogen Poots as the unlucky carer, he becomes like Hannibal Lecter, animated by rage and cruelty.
Anthony Hopkins of �The Silence of the Lambs�…
Anthony Hopkins, now a six-time Oscar nominee (and winner for The Silence of the Lambs)…
In adapting it for the big screen, Zeller has been assisted by Oscar nominated screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Atonement) and a stellar cast headlined by Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs).
In fact, after The Silence of the Lambs, there’s a compelling case to be made that this is his career best work.
The film could also spawn other movies in the same world, as Zeller has also written for the stage The Mother and The Son , which are related to The Father thematically.
Like the other Zeller plays I have seen, The Mother and Height of the Storm , “The Father” was written as a tour de force usually focusing on one person.