The Father (2020)
Country: GB/FR
Technical: col/2.39:1 97m
Director: Florian Zeller
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots
Synopsis:
A long-suffering daughter finally yields to pressure and places her Alzheimer's-stricken parent in a home.
Review:
This technically faultless film performs a deft sleight of hand on its audience: forced to share the protagonist's confused and contradictory perspective throughout, we thus experience the Alzheimer sufferer's disorientation and empathize with his anger. At the same time, we look back from the film's end and acquire the knowledge and understanding he will forever by denied. It is a risky gambit, at times in danger of resembling one of those charity fundraising shorts, as different characters utter the same lines. Zeller, however, holds his nerve and steers Hopkins through a moving performance, just as he steers his camera through this chameleon-like single set apartment, in each case avoiding overt theatricality.
Country: GB/FR
Technical: col/2.39:1 97m
Director: Florian Zeller
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots
Synopsis:
A long-suffering daughter finally yields to pressure and places her Alzheimer's-stricken parent in a home.
Review:
This technically faultless film performs a deft sleight of hand on its audience: forced to share the protagonist's confused and contradictory perspective throughout, we thus experience the Alzheimer sufferer's disorientation and empathize with his anger. At the same time, we look back from the film's end and acquire the knowledge and understanding he will forever by denied. It is a risky gambit, at times in danger of resembling one of those charity fundraising shorts, as different characters utter the same lines. Zeller, however, holds his nerve and steers Hopkins through a moving performance, just as he steers his camera through this chameleon-like single set apartment, in each case avoiding overt theatricality.
Country: GB/FR
Technical: col/2.39:1 97m
Director: Florian Zeller
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots
Synopsis:
A long-suffering daughter finally yields to pressure and places her Alzheimer's-stricken parent in a home.
Review:
This technically faultless film performs a deft sleight of hand on its audience: forced to share the protagonist's confused and contradictory perspective throughout, we thus experience the Alzheimer sufferer's disorientation and empathize with his anger. At the same time, we look back from the film's end and acquire the knowledge and understanding he will forever by denied. It is a risky gambit, at times in danger of resembling one of those charity fundraising shorts, as different characters utter the same lines. Zeller, however, holds his nerve and steers Hopkins through a moving performance, just as he steers his camera through this chameleon-like single set apartment, in each case avoiding overt theatricality.