Movie Review - The Father

Director: Florian Zeller
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 97 minutes
Year: 2021
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss

Description: A man (Anthony Hopkins) refuses all assistance from his daughter (Olivia Colman) as he ages. 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 hid reality.

Review: Anthony suffers from Alzheimer’s disease so his memory is beginning to fail him more and more. He doesn’t want to admit and accept that he needs care in his old age. He lives in with his daughter Anne and we see his condition getting worse.
Alzheimer’s disease has left so much suffering and grief. It’s a mental illness, there is nothing you can do but stand by and watch helplessly as someone you love slips away from you to the point that they may not even recognize you. “The Father” attempts for the first time to make the illness tangible and visualize it by highlighting the perspective of someone who suffers from it.
“The Father” manages to break free from the conventional way of storytelling in order to present us with something unique. All facets of film are pulled out to make us as disoriented as this broken old man who is slowly losing grip on reality.
The his ingeniously shown by playing with different aspects. Scenes are not entirely in chronological order, conversations can be partly fabricated in Anthony’s head, there are hallucinations of certain people who may not be there at all and even the furniture in Anthony’s apartment changes subtly throughout the film to show that he feels increasingly alienated from the outside world.
This angle tries to give us the most realistic look into the mind of someone with Alzheimer’s/ dementia. Like Anthony, you are frustrated-confused and along with him you are challenged to puzzle out to correct course of action. I have never seen a film that comes so dangerously close in depicting the mental state of someone with this horrific disease.
The film is carried by the Oscar-winning role of Anthony Hopkins. He is a veteran actor, in his eighties, but he still manages to win us all over. In everything he does, he is believable. Hopkins shows a range of emotion, where he can change in a fraction of seconds between being nice, funny, confused, sad and anxious. His final monologue leaves you heartbroken. And this perfectly describes this movie.
The film forms a fantastic whole, but also leaves room for your own interpretation. A great piece of cinema with a lesson in acting from Anthony Hopkins. A movie you seriously need to see!

Rating: 5/ 5