This one is very hard to watch.
Not in the negative sense; director Florian Zeller’s film adaptation of his award-winning 2012 stage play — available via video on demand — is fueled by a powerhouse performance from Anthony Hopkins, cast as a mischievous 80-year-old whose grip on reality is unraveling. Hopkins’ performance is heartbreaking; the path his character walks is absolutely shattering.
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| Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is all smiles and good manners when introduced to Laura (Imogen Poots, left), who's being interviewed by Anne (Olivia Colman) to become his caregiver. But the moment Anne's back is turned... |
Zeller’s non-linear and provocatively disorienting play was designed to give audiences a sense of what dementia looks, sounds and feels like; his film is similarly disconcerting. There’s no “beginning” to speak of; we’re simply dumped into Anthony’s world, for the most part confined to the flat that he shares with his divorced daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman).
She has fallen in love anew, and intends to join her new man in Paris. But she worries about her father, knowing that he shouldn’t be left alone. But Anthony is defiant, and refuses to put up with the caregivers Anne keeps bringing into the flat. His “trick” is to be charming and solicitous when meeting each new possibility — as with Laura (Imogen Poots), the one we witness — and then, later, to bully, frighten or antagonize them into quitting.
But I’ve already created an impression of linear progression, and that’s far from true. Zeller and cinematographer Ben Smithard favor establishing shots down the flat’s long hallway, and we never know whose voice — or presence — will manifest at the distant end. Anne’s clothing — and even age — shift. At one point, a man (Mark Gatiss) pops up in the living room, contentedly reading, looking like he belongs there.
Anthony misplaces things, most frequently his beloved watch. He forgets that he squirrels it away in a hidey-hole, to prevent it being stolen; Anne reminds him of this, and he erupts in a fury, incensed that she knows about that “secret” stash.
He frequently laments the absence of his other daughter — Lucy, his “favorite” — and wonders aloud why she never visits, oblivious to the pain such remarks cause Anne.
We soon realize that Anthony is a wholly unreliable narrator of his own saga; even more confusing, Zeller and co-scripter Christopher Hampton aren’t entirely trustworthy storytellers. They delight in confounding expectations, and pulling out the rug from beneath us, until even we aren’t sure what to believe. (Indeed, it’s tempting — given the nuances of Colman’s performance — to wonder if Anne is the one losing her mind.)
Zeller and production designer Peter Francis amplify Anthony’s agitation — and ours — by inserting small, incremental changes in the flat. Furniture moves; bits and bobs appear and disappear. The colors and tone start out as cheerful golds, creams and yellows, and gradually shift to despondent blues. As was the case with Catherine Deneuve’s character in 1965’s Repulsion, whose apartment expands impossibly as her manic depression intensifies, Anthony finds that he cannot “trust” his flat, from one day — or even moment — to the next.
But because he also knows there’s nothing wrong with him, the fault clearly lies with Anne and all these other visitors, who must be altering things behind his back.
Hopkins is sublime. The strength of Anthony’s certainty notwithstanding, it’s not absolute; his expression reveals flickers of doubt and worry, as if — somewhere, way in the back of his mind — he realizes the weight of evidence cannot be ignored. Nobody can out-charm Hopkins, when his persuasive Welsh charisma is at full-throttle; it’s jarring, even terrifying, when Anthony abruptly shifts to the uncomprehending fury of a helpless child.
Hopkins also is the world’s greatest putterer. Anthony mooches and shuffles about his flat like a dog on a scent, as if sensing danger, or seeking some whatzit that’ll absolutely make his day (if only he knew what it was, or where to look).
Colman is equally strong as a doting daughter worn down to a nub. Anne frequently looks exhausted from the effort of maintaining a smile, and displaying an outward cheerfulness she obviously doesn’t feel. She’s intelligent; she knows that Anthony’s unkind remarks and sudden rages don’t spring from meanness, but it still feels like psychological abuse.
She has endured it this long, we suspect, because of the “magic moments” when Anthony is himself, and they share a warm father/daughter exchange.
Gatiss — still Mycroft Holmes to a legion of Sherlock fans — is tantalizingly soothing as the unexpected visitor, gently poking holes in Anthony’s assumptions and beliefs. Poots’ Laura is polite and eager to please, but she seems too fragile; she’s an uncertain mouse about to be left in Anthony’s lion’s den.
Rufus Sewell is aggressively feral as Anne’s former husband Paul: absolutely not the person to be left anywhere near someone in Anthony’s condition. (We easily understand the divorce.)
There is no soundtrack, to speak of; the sole musical touch comes via the operas that Anthony listens to, at full volume.
Few films have had the courage to probe so persuasively at this inevitable shift of a family dynamic. It is an inescapable fact of life that, for every relationship between a parent and a child, there comes a moment when the child becomes a caregiver, and the parent a dependent.
Zeller’s film is powerful enough, that it’s apt to make viewers uneasy, knowing what is to come in their own lives.
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