Anthony Hopkins gives a fearless performance in The Father as an elderly man succumbing to dementia. In his debut as a film director, French playwright Florian Zeller adapts his own play in a production that could have been mounted on a single set with changes in furniture. We are trapped with the confused protagonist in an enclosed world that continually changes. Somebody keeps moving the chairs and changing the wall colors.
Zeller pulls off a difficult magic act, slipping the audience into the unstable perspective of his protagonist, Anthony, before we are aware of it. We are puzzled at first that the face of his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams) changes from scene to scene as if Anthony’s power of recognition toggles back and forth from on to off. He remarks that Anne divorced her husband years ago and is told that she is leaving soon for Paris. But then, at other times, he encounters (and sometimes doesn’t recognize) her (ex?) husband Paul (Mark Gatiss, Rufus Sewell), who likewise comes in two faces.
Anthony is obsessed with his wrist watch and his almost constant fear of losing it is a recurring motif. He is desperate to maintain a grip on some measurement of reality. Time has collapsed as Anthony circles back and around through a repeating cycle of painful memories. Fiercely independent, he insists he needs no help despite evidence to the contrary. He is determined to continue living at home, even as it becomes apparent that he’s living in Anne’s home—or is it Anne and Paul’s home?
Olivia Colman is the primary Anne, endowing her with the repressed pain and regal composure she brought to her role as Elizabeth II in “The Crown.” Anne is the polestar in Anthony’s foggy night, but she also has her own life to pursue. Will she deposit the frightened, bewildered old man in a nursing home?
The Father joins a lengthening roster of films dealing sympathetically with the problems of old age. The tragic reality is that more than ever before, many people are outliving not only their physical but their mental capability. It’s one thing to walk with a cane or hear with a device in your ear but quite another when you’re no longer certain of where or even who you are. Anthony can no longer recall the living from the dead. It should be added that even in his sad decline, he is more fortunate than most. Anthony has one child who cares and enough money to remain in comfortable surroundings.
Hopkins deserves his Oscar nomination for drawing upon the resources he amassed through a long career. His Anthony can be sharp and nasty, magisterial and dignified, funny, angry and bewildered as he tries to glue together the pieces of memory that keep shattering, their shards giving only a dim reflection of his past and his present circumstances.
The Father earned six Academy nominations (including Best Picture) as well as four Golden Globe nominations and six more from the British Academy of Film and Television. It’s screening at the Downer Theater and AMC Mayfair and is streaming on Apple TV, FandangoNOW, Amazon Prime and iTunes.
