Movie Breakdown: The Father (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
I can’t say that I’ve dreamed about the day when Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins would share the screen together. But now that they are, I mean, it is pretty dreamy.
Post-Screening Ramble:
I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Anthony Hopkins in anything where he didn’t play a character with power – a king, a god, a serial killer, a mogul. It’s his great gift to instill powerful characters with nuance. So, at first it’s surprising to see him as a man brought low by oncoming dementia in Florian Zeller’s The Father, to see him reduced to his basest instincts. The film follows an indeterminate amount of time in the life of Anthony (Hopkins), an aging man who has slipped into the space between being an independent human and losing his mind just enough to need constant support from his family. Slowly, with really masterful direction from first time director Zeller, the layers of Anthony’s life collapse in on each other, with the line between time and reality blurring more and more. Hopkins is, frankly, amazing. He isn’t commanding armies or rooms or lightning, but he is playing a character you can believe maybe once did, the power he once wielded still evident in every action as his grasp on sanity slowly dwindles. It makes for tense interactions with characters that flit in and out, rooms that change, entire structures that seem to shift around him. His reactions – ranging from anger to broke-down sadness – are amazing, and it feels as if you can almost see Hopkins physically alter as the film goes on. Olivia Colman, in too small of a role, is amazing as his daughter given the impossible task of placing her father in a home so she can go on with her life. She is, as always, warm and funny with just a touch of caustic anger right beneath the surface. Her scenes with Hopkins are almost unbearable – her love and sadness buried beneath her father’s anger at his own slow loss. This is a film about performances (it’s based on Zeller’s play) but the director uses the single apartment to great affect, each room looking enough like the last to create a subtle sense of confusion. At times the conceit of the film – the mystery of what’s happening to Anthony – distracts from what the film is really a showcase for – Hopkins’ brilliant performance – but it’s a small thing, a brief distraction in the enjoyment of true acting legend digging into a meaty role.
One Last Thought:
Olivia Williams is just the best. Why isn’t Olivia Williams in everything?
