I don't think I'm alone when I say that the thing that scares me the most about aging is my mind deteriorating. My body has never been my temple, so I'm fine with more frequent injuries and general lethargy. It's the idea of being a doddering that fool worries me. I'm proud of the fact that I'm not a dick to people, but if I lose track of time and place, I can see how I'd get frustrated and lash out too. This ties really close to my other fear that I'm actually living in a mental hospital and imagining the life I'm living now. In other words, The Father is more of a horror movie than many horror movies I've seen.
The basic description of the movie is pretty simple. Anthony Hopkins plays an elderly man named Anthony whose mind is failing him. He's jumbling timelines and people in his head. While he always seems to be in the same flat, he can't ever recall whether it's his flat, his daughter Anne's (Olivia Colman) flat, or even a doctor's office. So, it's just a movie about him trying to make sense of a day or days or months at a time. It's hard to get deeper about the plot though, because the events are jumbled to reflect how he's experiencing time. The way different people look will change. The events in his life change. One minute he'll be living with his daughter and her husband. The next, he'll be living on his own and Anne will be telling him that she's moving to Paris. The movie is actually a lot like mother! in the way that everyone seems to know the world better than Anthony does. The storytelling is slick though. Even though I couldn't tell you the exact series of events or which people he was recognizing properly by the end, I understood the overall story. The movie successfully confuses Anthony without feeling like it's deceiving the audience, which is not what I expected. It would be very easy to make this movie like a paranoid thriller. Instead, the audience knows early on that nothing suspect is happening. I had sympathy for Anthony the whole time. There is a little room for interpretation though. For example, sometimes Anne has a husband (played by two different actors). Other times, she's divorced and moving to Paris. I'm not exactly sure what her situation actually is. I only know that she has a desire to take care of her father. That's all that really matters. And, there are a few moments that make me suspicious of there being some elder abuse going on. Those moment could just as easily be him panicking in confusion though.
This is a movie in which every Oscar nomination not only makes sense but feels exactly correct. Hopkins and Colman are both tremendous in this. Hopkins is so believable in his confusion and attempts to mask the confusion at any given moment. Colman wears her frustration and sadness well. It's heartbreaking seeing the few moment when Anthony is cognizant enough to thank his daughter for her help, and Colman sells those infrequent occurrences as enough to keep her going. The movie is based on a play that's also written by co-writer/director Florian Zeller. I'm not sure how else someone could keep track of the narrative thread of the movie without being so integral to its creation. Perhaps the biggest stars of the movie are the production design and film editing (also both nominated). Most of the film occurs in a single apartment, and they do a marvelous job changing it so that it can be numerous places at once. A moved picture or new chair could indicate any number of time or location shifts even though we remain in the same room. That goes hand-in-hand with the film editing which creates a circular logic to most scenes. Like Anthony, I often lost track of how one scene transitioned to a completely different scene. It's almost like trying to remember the start of a dream.
I'm sure some part of it is just my joy of seeing anything in a theater these days, but I liked The Father significantly more than I expected. Despite the few locations and the fact that it's based on a play, the film felt very cinematic: so much so that I struggle to see how it would work as well as a play. Hopkins, Colman, and the rest of the small cast (including Imogen Poots, Olivia Williams, and Rufus Sewell) are tremendous. This wasn't the emotional slog I expected, because Hopkins is so lively. It's often hard to tell if moments should be funny or sad because of how well Hopkins plays them. This is rapidly moving up my chart of what I want to win Best Picture this year.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment