Director/playwright Florian Zeller’s The Father (2020) is an emotionally harrowing experience, thanks both to Anthony Hopkins’ superbly nuanced, Oscar-winning performance, and a clever non-liner narrative that mirrors the title character’s tragic slide into dementia.
 |
| They look happy, but that's misleading; Peter (Hugh Jackman, right) and Kate (Laura Dern) are beginning to realize that their teenage son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) has some serious problems. |
For the most part, the actors can’t be faulted; Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern and Vanessa Kirby do solid work, and Hopkins is mesmerizing in a fleeting cameo.
Zen McGrath’s handling of this film’s title character is one weak link; he simply isn’t credible as a teenager struggling with mental illness.
But McGrath isn’t entirely to blame, because he hasn’t been granted sufficiently persuasive material. Scripter Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Zeller’s stage play frequently feels contrived; the scenario and sequence of events lack credibility.
Peter Miller (Jackman), a high-profile Manhattan attorney with his eyes on a prize career shift to Washington, D.C., has been settling comfortably into life with new partner Beth (Kirby) and their infant son. The story begins with the unexpected arrival of his agitated ex-wife, Kate (Dern), and her revelation that their 17-year-old son, Nicholas (McGrath), hasn’t been to school for a month.
He has pretended to go, leaving her home each weekday morning with what she’d expect to see, in terms of books and other materials; and he has returned at the appropriate time each afternoon. But school officials finally exposed the charade, and Kate has no idea what Nicholas actually has been doing.
Nor does Nicholas offer any sort of defense. He simply insists that he “can’t stay” with his mother any longer, and would prefer to live with his father, Beth and his baby brother.
Beth isn’t thrilled; her expression makes this obvious. But she doesn’t object; she recognizes the importance of a father/son bond, and she clearly wants her relationship with Peter to succeed. Beth never states any of this in so many words, but it’s clear from Kirby’s delicate, quietly shaded performance.
(Although Kirby has been quite busy since, she remains well remembered as Princess Margaret, in television’s The Crown.)
