The Father - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Father



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
My mother once told me that Alzheimer’s doesn’t just steal life from the one who has it, but it also drains it from those around the afflicted as well. It’s a strange thing mental illness is. When the body has a problem it recognizes it, sends sensations of pain to the brain so that we can take care of, and heal, said problem. When our tooth aches, we go to the dentist and take care of the problem. When our body trembles and we throw up we go and get something for the flu. However, when the mind gets ill its as if the entire world is the problem, while we stay “sane” at the center of it all. The person afflicted doesn’t know that they’re ill many times, which is one of the reasons those who have to take enormous amounts of pills suddenly think they’re “better” when they get off of them. The rest of the world sees them spiraling out of control, but from the point of view of the afflicted it’s everyone else around them that has a problem.

Thus is the case with the film that garnered Anthony Hopkins his Academy award this, narrowly beating out Chadwick Boseman posthumously. Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is a rambunctious 80 year old who is having conflicts with his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) about her moving away to Paris and he basically getting on the nerves of all the caretakers who are there to take care of the aging man. He doesn’t really think that he needs to go into a home as his daughter is staying with him in his flat in London, but she has different ideas. He’d really rather see his other daughter Lucy, but Anne will have to do even though she’s not his favorite daughter. Anthony knows exactly who he is, and his walls are lined with books and music and paintings from his children to back up the assertion that he has lived a full and fruitful life.

However, Anthony is getting more and more confused. Conversations make no sense the next day. Strange people show up in his flat for no reason and give conflicting reports of who they are. As time passes the world becomes more and more of a crazy place, as people lie to him, refuse to believe that he knows what he’s talking about, and even worse, aren’t who they say they are from one moment to the next.

The Father is an incredibly brutal and grueling watch about a man losing his faculties due to Alzheimer’s. The entire film is almost always shown through the eyes of Anthony, which means the story seems fractured, broken, and even contradictory at times as we see scenes shown again later in the movie that are played out with different characters in them. It’s a brilliant move really, as the audience gets to see the chaos and roiling sea of emotional changes of the characters and slowly piece together just what is actually happening here. Anthony can be a total monster at times, making cruel and unsightly comments about Anne (who grits her teeth and bares the pain when he says something out of character), and even indulges in flights of fancy about his care takers and what happened in his life. However, it’s not his fault. The failing mind that he’s afflicted with is creating scenarios up that don’t actually exist, and even though he has fleeting glimpses of cruelty, Anthony also shows incredible kindness, and even a few glimpses of clarity. There’s a scene about 2/3rds of the way through the movie where Anthony is having problems putting on a sweater and Anne comes to help him where he pauses, looks up, and says to Anne “I’m so sorry, for everything” with this look of sharp clarity that he hasn’t shown since the film began. You can see in his eyes that he knows what’s happening to him, and that he’s as pained about it as his suffering daughter, only for that moment to vanish in an instant and the doddering old man returns worrying about his missing watch.

It’s a devestatingly heartbreaking film, and one that doesn’t exactly go with a traditional storytelling motif. The beginning and the end are really the only moments of “truth” that the audience can be sure of, with the rest of the movie being told from the point of view of the unreliable narrator. However, that is inconsequential as we all know by the end of the film that what we were seeing was truths, half truths, and complete fantasies from a man who is losing his grasp on reality, and us experiencing the confusion and chaos that he experiences every day is the real point of the film.

I almost wondered how the Academy awards could give Anthony Hopkins the award for best Actor, especially due to the great public buzz around Chadwick’s death. That is until I watched The Father and saw one of the most incredible performances I had ever seen, rivaling anything Hopkins has done during his prime (which is shocking, considering that Anthony Hopkins was relegating himself to B and C grade movies over the course of the last decade). He’s absolutely flawless as Anthony, showing all of the characters manic highs, depressing lows, and agonizing sense of confusion. The role single handedly keeps you glued to the screen, just aching to see his character roil and twist in his own mental prison. Olivia Colman is a short step behind him, giving multiple various performances depending on what condition Anthony’s character is in at the time. Simply put, this had some of the best performances I had seen in years and Anthony Hopkins blew me away.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, and thematic material




Video:

The 1080p Blu-ray is more than adequate for a modern drama, giving us a traditionally excellent digital presentation that just about maxes out the capabilities of the Blu-ray format. The movie is never overly bright and colorful, but rather bathes itself in rich mahogany wood tones, creams, and dull British pastels for the most part. Detail levels remain very high, though, with incredible facial details and intimate items such as clothing, while allowing intricate amounts of clarity on wood cabinets in the background, or the tweed sofas that characters sit on. The focus sometimes really levels in on the foreground characters, going soft for the background, but that’s an intentional move that shifts right back to razor focus after the scene is finished. Blacks are generally quite good, although I noticed some crush in Anthony’s office, and the dull nursing home room at the end is a bit milky.







Audio:

While the 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio mix isn’t exactly a banger, it’s not something to be mad about. This is a very quiet drama that is VERY intensive in the dialog department, with only the haunting and melodic score really bringing out any surround or LFE activity. The vast majority of the film is extremely front heavy, although some discrete sounds of Anne banging around in the kitchen, or the rustling of leaves in the trees outside do fill out the surround channels outside of the musical score. It’s a simple dialog track, and it does everything asked of it without a problem. Simple, effective, and not flashy at all.







Extras:

• Deleted Scenes
• Homecoming: Making The Father
• Perception Check: Portrait of The Father

Final Score: ​

The Father is not a movie that you go into thinking you’re in for a fun jaunt. The movie is riveting, but also depressingly heartbreaking and almost oppressive to watch due to the subject matter. But let that not deter you as it gives us one of the best performances of the decade and truly shows just how utterly crushing and grueling a mental illness like Alzheimer’s can be for all involved. The Blu-ray is very impressive, with great video, good audio, but only a modicum of minimal extras to enjoy. Definitely recommended.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Colman, Mark Gatiss, Olivia Williams, Imogen Poots, Ayesha Dharker
Directed by: Florian Zeller
Written by: Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Studio: Sony
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 97 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: May 18th, 2021

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I didn't catch this one but will look for it now. It is always sad to see people suffer thru Alzheimer. It is very interesting in a way, we appear in this world as baby's with no faculties with heavy dependence on others and some will leave this world the same way, with no faculties and needing that support structure as well. Life does go full circle sometimes.