Hopkins towers as man of the hour
THE FATHER SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON DEMENTIA’S RIPPLE EFFECTS
THE FATHER (M)
Director: Florian Zeller (feature debut)
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots.
Rating:
Time waits for no man … and weighs on all men
IF The Father teaches us anything, it is that the phrase “the ageing process” means nothing.
As we will come to understand from this extraordinary movie, there is no process. There is just ageing.
In The Father, we join the sad, inevitable journey of a man in his eighties as he passes an unmistakeable point of no return.
Anthony (an astonishing Anthony Hopkins) would have the world believe he is quite capable of looking after himself. However, the world that Anthony believes still exists all around him crumbled into ruins long ago.
Anthony wakes each day assuming he lives independently and effectively in his wellappointed London flat.
This is not the case at all. His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) can no longer find a carer capable of handling Anthony’s prickly demeanour.
She is hoping to relocate to Paris with a relatively new love of her life, Paul (Rufus Sewell). Perhaps the time may have come for Anthony to move to a facility better equipped for his needs?
Anthony, of course, can’t see the point. He also can’t find his watch. And what’s all this about Anne and Paris? Wasn’t she once married to a man named Paul?
And who is that man sitting in the loungeroom saying he owns the flat? And why has Anne come back from the shops looking like someone else? And where is his other daughter? She never seems to visit any more.
And where is that watch?
Most of us will readily recognise the foggy haze of dementia as it hovers, descends and then clears as Anthony goes about his day.
What many viewers of The Father may not immediately realise is that what we see is filtered through the shifting perspectives from which Anthony experiences life.
The flat in which Anthony lives is literally his entire world. However, if you follow the movie closely, you will notice its dimensions and configuration change subtly throughout.
Time in The Father becomes a fluid, precious commodity. Days come and go in a flash. Minutes take a seeming eternity. Nights can arrive without notice. No wonder Anthony is always looking for that blasted watch.
A brutally blunt, yet beautifully honest portrait of a life ending before it is actually over, The Father capitalises on a towering performance from Hopkins.
While this decorated actor applies pinpoint precision to his role, he also generates great
poignancy as he shows us fleeting glimpses of the man Anthony once was, and never will be again.
The Father is now showing in general release
BLITHE SPIRIT (PG)
Now streaming on Amazon Prime
BE patient, be forgiving, and if you’re so inclined, be well into your second drink for the evening.
Tick at least two of these three boxes and this wildly uneven, yet undeniably entertaining adaptation of the classic Noel Coward play Blithe Spirit will just about pay its way.
Though the premise of the plot is somewhat antiquated – a British novelist struggling to cut it as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1930s hires a batty clairvoyant who accidentally summons the ghost of his dead first wife – the majority of Coward’s famed witticisms and zingers still hit their targets with ease.
An up-for-anything cast do their darnedest to make sure the movie never quite goes downhill for too long. Former Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens proves an
efficient anchor as Charles Condomine, the wordsmith with a haunting problem or two. Leslie Mann is his late missus, Elvira, Isla Fisher is his second wife, Ruth, and an unrestrainedly hammy Dame Judi Dench is having a high old time of it as the kooky mystic Madame Arcati.
Longtime Noel Coward fans may wish to be aware that the original ending has undergone some very unnecessary renovations for reasons hard to understand.
TOM & JERRY: THE MOVIE (G)
General release
DID you know that those great grandaddies of cat-and-mouse cartooning – the incomparable Tom & Jerry – bagged seven Oscars in their anvil-dropping, frying pan-to-the-face prime? Neither did I.
The key fact is that the gold statues were all for shorts that ran five minutes or less, and were also very, very violent, and very, very funny.
Needless to say, this understandably safe, yet frustratingly bland 21st century version won’t be winning any awards.
For the record, this hybrid of live-action and CGI animation plonks Thomas and Jerome in a posh New York hotel, where their good-natured hatin’ on each other gets on the nerves of staff and patrons alike. Stars Chloe Grace Moretz and Michael Pena.