Why Father is both mesmerizing and frightening at the same time

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The picture, which brought the actor the second "Oscar", touches with a life story, but sometimes turns into a real horror.

The British-French film "Father" immediately attracts attention with its all-star cast, starring Oscar-winning Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Coleman. They are also accompanied by Olivia Williams, Mark Gattis and Imogen Poots.

But big names are not the only merit of this work. The adaptation of the play of the same name touches upon a very important topic - senile dementia and the relationship of adult children with their parents.

Moreover, the film allows you not only to look at history from the outside. He seems to make the viewer a participant in the events, allowing him to let the feelings of the protagonist and his loved ones pass through himself. Because of this, the film looks like a touching drama, or a confusing story, where truth is difficult to distinguish from fiction. And sometimes the picture is scary, like a real horror.

A drama to be lived

Elderly Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) lives in London. His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) is planning to move with her fiancé to Paris. But for this she must find a permanent nurse for her father. But Anthony has an unbearable personality that none of the hired workers can stand. The old man is convinced that he does not need custody. In reality, he is increasingly confused, does not recognize his own home and even his daughter.

The strangeness of this film is that even to the synopsis at the end of each sentence, it would be correct to add the word “seems”. Not a single event shown on the screen can be sure to the end. But this is not a game with the attentiveness of the viewer, as, for example, in the film "Thinking How to Finish Everything" by Charlie Kaufman, but a necessary move.

Senile dementia is discussed regularly in the movies. But most of these pictures analyze the story from the outside: here is a person who has memory problems, here are his relatives who are trying to help (or simply abandon the powerless). However, in this there is often a certain manipulativeness: the viewer is forced from the outside to observe how a person loses himself.

But Florian Zeller, a debutant in directing a big movie, took on an incredible responsibility based on his own play. He puts the viewer in the place of Anthony himself, forcing him not to watch, but to live this story. In the first scene, the picture gives out a clear exposition: the main character, his daughter, the situation that will have to be solved. But after 15 minutes, the viewer feels confused along with the elderly character.

The plot will throw up such surprises without stopping, forcing you to guess, get angry, try to somehow rationalize what is happening. But this inevitably leads to failure. After all, the author's goal is to convey sensations. And if at the very beginning of the plot, the behavior of Hopkins's hero seems to be annoying antics of a mischievous old man, then in the end his almost hysterical attempts to portray that he is in control of the situation will only arouse sympathy.

At the same time, Zeller does not assess the actions of the heroes. "Father" is not at all about any kind of morality. It is impossible to judge a daughter for wanting to live her life. And who knows what of the shown is happening in real time, and what is just scraps of memories.

The detective who was not there

The complexity of constructing the picture, with the seemingly intimate narrative, will surely cause some of the viewers to associate with the classic closed detective story. Adds atmosphere and partly British origins to the film. After all, it is the inhabitants of Foggy Albion who are so fond of intricate stories that they have continuously staged Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap" on the stage more than 27 thousand times.

The heredity of the play in Father is quite obvious. One can literally feel how the actors and the scenery change behind the back of the main character, while Anthony distracts all the attention. Because of this deceptive atmosphere, the viewer will soon have a timid hope: what if everything that happens lends itself to a logical or at least mystical explanation?

Now the main character will see clearly and figure it out. Or some kind of deception will be revealed, because the character of Gattis is most similar to the villain: too often he played unpleasant personalities, and his face is disposed.

But everyone will secretly understand that all this is just self-deception - both for the hero and for the viewer. I just don't want to admit the sad truth too much.

However, a certain detective part in the plot will remain, you just need to work on it yourself - Hercule Poirot will not come to life with a coherent explanation. You can try to put together a puzzle of the events taking place and put them into an almost coherent story. This will not change the tragedy of the plot, but it will still create the illusion of control. What Anthony lacks so much.

A horror that really scares

And the most amazing thing is that a 100% dramatic film, dedicated to the disease and the relationship between fathers and children, seems to inherit the techniques of a completely unrelated genre - horror films.

No, here demons will not jump out from behind the hero. But, as in many horror movies, the picture forces you to peer into many details, creating a real suspense in the spirit of Hitchcock. The camera snatches out individual elements of the interior: a dripping tap, dishes, a picture - and immediately returns to Anthony's face.

Hopkins has perhaps more close-ups in this film than in any of his other work. But this actor is able to tell more with his eyes and facial expressions than any complex filming and wordy dialogues. The fear on his face is completely natural.

The hero's obsession with his watch seems manic. The crazy dance that the old man performs to prove his strength is so unnaturally funny that it even scares. And there is no doubt that Hopkins earned his second Oscar for this role.

The rest, even the magnificent Olivia Colman, who in other films always draws attention to herself, only support his touching and at the same time eerie performance. Whatever one may say, "Father" is a theater of one actor.

The combination of a difficult to perceive ambiguous plot and the image of Anthony Hopkins turn the picture into a frightening sight. But it seems scary precisely because of its realism. Inevitably, thoughts arise that everyone can face this. The only question is, in the role of which character.

There is no doubt that Florian Zeller's full-length debut was successful. Oscars in the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor categories, as well as four other nominations, already speak of universal recognition.

But first and foremost, "Father" remains a small, touching and very important story. He talks about a common and very familiar problem. Moreover, it turns the plot not into a declaration of morality, but into a personal experience that the viewer will have to go through on their own. It is difficult, but necessary.