Synopsis
A man refuses assistance from his daughter as he gets old. As he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt everything.
Who is the Audience for This Movie?
People looking for a movie to hit you right in the feels.
Review
As of this posting I am late to the game on the praise of this film, with that said, any words you see below this sentence cannot explain how (almost) perfect this “film” is.
By the end scene of this movie your mind state is…..fuck.
I feel like there is no way of writing a proper review of this movie without thinking about how your parents and other family members will age. It is a dark experiment into how the young and old intersect at the point of life where both sides start to think about aging but one party needs lots of help to function daily.
Almost every scene in the movie is divisive based on on your life experience and every few minutes the movie toys with you to take one side then proves why you should not.
The fact that a movie like this exists is great for cinema. It not only strikes all the right emotional tones it needs to, it does it in a way that is not overtly forced and overwritten. It plays off the the brilliantly good acting by everyone involved (especially Anthony Hopkins) and moves at a break neck pace.
My usual complaint with high concept movies is that they rarely find a satisfying way to end. The final scene in “The Father” hits you so hard in the feels and justifies everything it has shown you I could not be more happy with a movie sticking its landing. If the ending to this movie does not move you in any way you may not be human.