The Father (film)
Status: Finished first viewing on 01/12/2022
Rating: 4/5
Spoilers
This movie is about an elderly man losing his mind. Like Memento, the film tries to make the viewer confused in the same way the protagonist is confused. Events happen out-of-order, environments change suddenly, and names/faces shift arbitrarily. I loved Memento and similarly loved this.
As others have noted, Anthony Hopkins gives an all-time great performance. From now on, my new superlative for great acting is “Anthony-Hopkins-The-Father-Good.” Until I say otherwise, if I don’t mention Anthony Hopkins, I am implicitly saying the performance is not as good as this one.
I was surprised not to cry during the movie. For me, it was more of a “thinking” as opposed to “feeling” movie. I watched it with my mom, who is a big cryer. She did cry a bit, but less than you would expect. It is still extremely disturbing, even if it is not as sad as you might expect. I am of course assuming that you would expect this movie to be very sad.
The themes of the movie are straight-forward. It is about mental decline, the imperfect connection between our minds and the outside world, and the burdens of caregivers. In some ways, the least obvious thing about this movie is the plot. My interpretation is that we should think of the movie as being about his existence in the nursing home. Before arriving…
- He lived semi-independently in his flat.
- Then, he had a fight with his carer and fired her.
- His daughter had to cancel her trip to take care of him.
- She moved him to her apartment, which irritated her boyfriend.
- They hired a new carer, but it did not work out.
- She put him in a nursing home and moved to Paris.
The movie shows his memory of those events, which is jumbled, and leaves him in a disoriented state at the nursing home. It’s unclear if his other daughter died before or after he developed his illness.
Over the last few years, I have been exposed to lots of stuff dealing with declines in mental health.
- Watched Still Alice
- Watched The Father
- Read The Corrections (focuses on Parkinson’s disease, but definitely has a mental component)
- Read An Absent Mind
- Currently watching Succession, Season 1
These things have all moved me more in support of euthanasia. The idea of euthanasia is explicitly explored in Still Alice. She offers a good model for how I would like to approach it in my own case.