Don’t you remember? This innocuous question, a conversational bridge and a filler in daily speech, becomes a cross that Anthony is increasi...
Don’t you remember? This innocuous question, a conversational bridge and a filler in daily speech, becomes a cross that Anthony is increasingly unable to bear. An octogenarian from London, Anthony has begun an inexorable slide into dementia. Time has lost meaning for him, even though he tries to keep up by constantly peering at his watch – if only he could find it.
The characteristics of this debilitating form of mental atrophy are brilliantly imagined for the screen in Florian Zeller’s Oscar-nominated The Father – the crippling loss of memory and inability to distinguish morning from evening, the hallucinations and the paranoia, the repetitive behaviour, the terror over the gradual loss of identity. The French playwright and first-time director has based The Father on his own play La Pere and has co-written the movie along with Christopher Hampton.
The intricate screenplay explores Anthony’s escalating disorientation through a non-linear narrative, a seamless mix of imagined and actual encounters, and the recurrence of events and conversations. Much of the movie is seen through Anthony’s eyes, nudging viewers to understand what it means to lose the ability to relate to regular life.
The movie mostly takes place in a flat, beautifully designed by Peter Francis. In this large apartment with never-ending rooms and doors...
