Cult movie in the making
Come to Daddy (R16, 95 mins) Directed by Ant Timpson Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★
Pitched somewhere between a love-letter to every film that’s ever made him hoot with delight and a pastiche of ideas we have surely seen before, but which we might never tire of revisiting, Ant Timpson’s Come To Daddy arrives with the ‘‘cult movie’’ tag already firmly attached, even though years will have to pass before we will know whether it actually survives to become one.
Elijah Wood – who is surely every casting agent’s first call now for anything violently off-beat, if Nic Cage and Keanu Reeves are too old or too pricey – turns up at the door of a decent architect’s idea of a cabin in the woods.
Wood’s Norval – who doesn’t even need to speak to establish his character, so pathetically pretentious is his haircut and moustache ensemble – is there to meet his dad, who he hasn’t seen in 30 years or more.
But daddy doesn’t seem exactly keen to see his boy. In fact, you might even pick up that Brian (Stephen McHattie, 50 years into his career and as hypnotic as ever) at first doesn’t even seem to recognise who Norval is.
What follows – after a lengthier than necessary setup – is a nicely deadpan and often stone-cold funny tale of murder, betrayal, false identities, escalating violence and the slow-dawning revelation that young Norval, despite looking like he should be doing nothing more taxing than assembling almond milk lattes in a Williamsburg popup, is actually quite remarkably tough to kill. Auckland-based Timpson’s debut as director is a very easy film to enjoy. Although it wears its inspirations and influences proudly and openly, there is still some originality and a clear voice.
Timpson brings a woozy profundity to these comedy/horror tropes, by placing a surprisingly well-wrought and poignant father/son reconciliation yarn at the centre of Come To Daddy.
Every great film has a love story somewhere near its heart, propelling it forward and giving our heroes and villains an emotional payload worth fighting for. The love story in Come To Daddy is clearly visible, early and often. So while Come To Daddy never scales the heights of dementedness of, say Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy, (to be fair, very few films do) it still does enough to emerge as a curiously satisfying and consistent bout of storytelling, draped in some truly lunatic moments of bloodshed and chaos.
Those of you who make a fetish of consistency of tone might not like it at all, but when Come To Daddy does hit its marks, it swings like a puppy up a rope.