This is not a film you can watch casually. And yet, attentiveness will only feed confusion and your confusion will grant you no answers … well, none for a while, at least. It won’t take more than five minutes in for the confusion to germinate: Well, there’s Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) who is looking very Anthony Hopkins and acting very Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, I know that guy. And here’s his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), lamenting that she can’t be doin’ stuff for dad no more cuz she’s going to live in France with her new fella.
And then the very next scene, Olivia Williams who is definitely NOT Olivia Colman is in Anthony’s apartment and now she’s Anne. And she isn’t married and has no plans to go to Paris … and then in the scene after that, Mark Gatiss shows up as Anne’s husband, but it’s now his apartment and Anthony is living there at the pleasure of his daughter.
Hold up. What’s going on here?
This film isn’t a mystery. It sure seems like it, but it isn’t. The biggest problem with The Father is that it plays like a mystery. In the first two Acts, the film gaslights the audience as much as it does the lead character. The Father has deliberately set up Anthony as the constant perspective. We feel his pain and his confusion throughout. This is Alzheimer’s. 
This is Dementia. Didn’t know what it was before? Well now you do. Is it accurate? Based on the fact that Anthony won an Oscar for this role, I’m going to guess that’s a “yes.”
In the battle between insightful and entertaining, The Father came down so heavily on insightful you’d think it was a documentary. In fact, this film has almost zero entertainment value … unless you like to see an old man perpetually confused. But it is a wonderful performance. I might have scoffed when the Oscar was awarded – Chadwick Boseman was the sentimental choice and Riz Ahmed gave the best performance, and yet, the academy saw fit to give Anthony Hopkins an Oscar for a film only they had seen. I loathe this kind of occurrence. But that isn’t Anthony Hopkins’ fault … and while I still think Riz Ahmed deserves the Best Actor Oscar for Sound of Metal, I don’t begrudge the Anthony Hopkins victory; he gave an Oscar-worthy performance.
The Father is not a fun film, as you might have gathered, and yet it describes very well a real life scenario that every.single.person on the planet is likely to encounter one day from one perspective or another. In this light, I respect the film and although it struck me as not much more than a more palatable version of Amour, it still deserves the attention of anybody who needs to know more about the perils of aging, which at last count, includes … everybody.
Dementia is a fate we’re all praying
Will not find our memories betraying
Alas growing old
Leaves one less bold
I’m sorry, exactly what was I saying?
Rated PG-13, 97 Minutes
Director: Florian Zeller
Writer: Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller
Genre: The one that makes you sad
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People dealing with Alzheimer’s and Dementia
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Narcissists
