Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen
My father is 86 years old and will be 87 in January. Right now, his biggest concern is that he is starting to slip a bit mentally. He thinks his memory is going, for instance, and it’s true that there are some things do seem to have slipped his memory. Dad has always been his mind more than anything; he’s always needed to be the smartest man in the room. Any sign of mental lapse worries him, and he obsesses about it. All of this made The Father a very hard watch for me.
This is very much a story about dementia. Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is suffering from a mental decline that is rapidly increasing. At various points in the movie, he is in his own apartment, that of his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) and a nursing home. We move between these locations and between days without warning and without any real indication of what is happening. Time becomes a thing of fluidity. Anne may be moving to Paris, even though they don’t speak English there (a common refrain from Anthony). Is she moving there because she met a man named Paul (Rufus Sewell)? Is Paul her ex-husband? The answer seems to be yes, depending on where we are in the movie.
