Anthony Hopkins is Dad and he’s a wisened old so and so. Gnarly and cantankerous, and, if we are honest a bit of a piece of work.
He yells at his careworkers, appears to be horrendously bullying to his daughter Anne, (the ever watchable Olivia Colman) and generally a miserly old sod.
But Dad, played by Hopkins is a brilliantly overused portrayal of a man who has lost who is. Terrified of the familiar and lost on a sea of change when all is the same.
But is it?
Sets change, even as days repeat...or are they repeating. Does Anne have an ulterior motive for her father’s situation.
When a stranger (Mark Gatiss) appears to have set up home in Dad’s flat the distrustful patriarch is driven to outbursts, characters change and we have no real sense of place or time.
The cinematography from Florian Zeller makes good use of key pints in a twisted narrative, keeping the viewer on the back foot and everything is held together by the mesmeric Hopkins.
The supporting cast feed well on the screenplay from Christopher Hampton, famous for Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement but rest assured this is HIS film.
Whereas 2019’s Relic took a gothic horror twist to the ravages of the mind, The Father is far more insidious.
The Father is out now, click the poster below for film times and further information.
