The Father

The Father (2020) is about a man with dementia and it is built from inside his head. Anthony is in his eighties, living in his own flat in London. His daughter Anne keeps arranging carers and he keeps driving them off. Then Anne says she is moving to Paris. Then he is told she is not moving to Paris. Then there is a man in the living room he does not recognise, saying he is Anne's husband. The method is to put the audience into the same uncertainty. The flat changes from scene to scene: the colour of a kitchen cupboard, the picture in the hall, where the furniture sits. The actors change too; one character is played by two different people. Rather than describe what Anthony is going through, the film gives it to you. An hour in you realise the order of the scenes is not reliable either. Florian Zeller adapted his own play, and this is his first film. Anthony Hopkins won best actor at eighty three, the oldest winner in the category. The character is also called Anthony, and the date of birth given in the film is Hopkins's own. Olivia Colman plays the daughter. The final scene explains the whole structure and is very hard to sit through. It runs 97 minutes. Good for: performance, formal experiment, and family drama. Less good for: it is genuinely punishing if dementia is in your family, and the film offers no consolation.