The Disorientations of Aging
5/5
Spoilers
Chadwick Boseman was not robbed. Steven Soderbergh is clearly a moron. These are two conclusions we came to at approximately 20:00 on Thursday evening. Two months late, completely irrelevant to most by now, but two important conclusions nonetheless. As we sipped our post cinematic beverages (beers for Mrs. C, my father, and me, gin for my sister) it became apparent that the true travesty of the Oscars this year was not Chadwick's surprise loss, but the foolish presentation of the awards.
For those of you who don't walk around in life thinking about one specific, jaded awards ceremony all year, I will recap. The late Chadwick Boseman, an actor who could have defined his cinematic generation, was nominated for Best Actor for his final film role: Levee Green in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. He had swept a series of other 'Best Actor' wins through the earlier stages of the awards season and most expected him to crown it with the Oscar. A fitting eulogy for an actor taken too soon. The Father, starring the titan Sir Anthony Hopkins, had been released in a limited capacity, and not in the U.K., so was mostly slipping under radars. Yes, obviously, people did know of it and expected it to do well, but please stick to the main narrative here. Expecting Boseman, a black actor, to take the prize, Steven Soderbergh, who was directing the Oscars, felt that this achievement would cap off the end of the Oscars with a strong Black Lives Matter message. Remember, the Oscars and the Academy aren't racist, no sir-ee!
Soderbergh switched the Best Picture category with Best Actor. Rather than big reveal of Nomadland taking the most cherished prize of the evening, Boseman would be rewarded as its grand finale. Instead, Hopkins surprised everyone by coming out on top. The presenters were stunned. Hopkins himself, not at the ceremony, had not even prepared an acceptance speech to be read out - it took several hours before he sent a short reply saying he was totally surprised and that Boseman was a great loss to Hollywood. The Academy Awards, at the end of the BLM year, ended with a black actor losing to an old white guy again. Great message, guys.
Now, at that point, I did assume that, although Soderbergh was at some fault for not checking who had won in advance, this had been another whitewashing by the Academy. Surely Boseman was the best actor that year. As I wrote at the top, I wrong. Boseman, however great in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, was not robbed. Soderbergh, who one would have assumed may have watched the primary nominated films, should have seen this coming. Having watched The Father this week, the award was always going to be Hopkins'. His performance is truly a career best.
The Father follows a theme not uncommon in recent movies. Hopkins plays, aptly, Anthony, an aging retired engineer who has dementia. Primarily, we are shown the relationship he has with his eldest daughter, played by the current British darling of the movies, Olivia Colman. Typically in these films, one would follow the relationship through the daughter's perspective. You would see his confusion, his deterioration, and the stages of loss, mirrored in her sadness. In fact, a trailer for an upcoming film, Supernova starring Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth, seemed to be just that. Yet in this film, though, we are in Anthony's world.
At all points, the film is designed to disorientate the viewer, showing you very reasonable scenarios where Anthony is confused. Partially this comes from manipulation of time. Anthony sees events out of sequence. His daughter is going to move to Paris; then she denies all knowledge of this; then she is married; then she is single; then she is moving to Paris with her partner. One scene, over a traumatic dinner, sees Anthony walk in on an argument between Anne and Paul, the daughter and her partner. The dinner concludes, he leaves, and returns, entering the room to the same scene he had walked in on at the top of the scene. Reality has looped.
The actors themselves become tools to confuse us as we struggle to follow Anthony's mixed-up world. Before we have even met Rufus Sewell's Paul, we meet Mark Gatiss - as Paul. Anthony, desperate to clarify what is going on, is overjoyed when Anne returns home. But this is not Olivia Colman, it is Olivia Williams as Anne. He doesn't know who she is. This tool is used sparingly, but when it is employed it creates a sense of anxiety best associated with Hitchcock-ian psychological thrillers.
The final ingredient comes in the excellent use of set. The whole film takes place, ostensibly, in one location. At the start, it is Anthony's flat, one he refuses to leave. It is well kept, stylish in an old fashioned way, with a neat drinks trolley, an impressive hi-fi in the library, a piano in the sitting room, a collection of interesting early-20th Century adorning the walls. Slowly the flat morphs. Aside from one purposeful jump, where the kitchen suddenly changes from a well-kept 80s style suite to a very modern set of handle-less cupboards, everything else changes gradually, scene by scene. He is not in his flat, he is in Anne's. His paintings slowly vanish, his piano gone, his wardrobe is new, the drinks trolley smaller. So smooth the transitions, so great his pain as the mementos of his existence slip away, that the flat is a physical representation of his crumbling mind. You could almost believe he was a victim of gaslighting.
Although you are drawn into Anthony's world, writer/director Florian Zeller does not make Anthony appear reasonable. Anyone who has known someone succumb to the effects of dementia will know that, alongside the confusion and forgetfulness, often comes a stark change in personality. Here, whilst we can see why Anthony is confused, we are also shown his yo-yoing personality and the effects his words have on Anne. One moment he is full of Leslie Phillips-esque charm and joviality, the next he is mean and cruel. In a moment of calm he thanks Anne for her care of him, in the next scene he berates her for not being as good as his other, deceased, daughter. Whilst the world view is his, the pain Anne feels as her father transforms into this bitter caricature is vital.
Typically I am wary of adaptations of plays. They have a tendency to be very wordy, very boxed in, and feel staged. The cinema, for all of its CGI magic, is still a more naturalistic and intimate medium. Dialogue can be short, inconsequential. It is often at its worst when every word uttered must make a point. Pain is not shown through an explosive monologue but through the careless dropping of a mug or a long, hollow stare into the mid-distance. Unlike so many play adaptations, Zeller has taken his own work and transformed it into a film. It is not a play with more walls - it is truly a movie. A harrowing movie and a great movie. At the core of this movie, is Sir Anthony Hopkins. For all of the film's strengths, it is held together by his often wild, often scary, often subtle performance.
The Father, 2020
Director: Florian Zeller
Writer: Florian Zeller & Christopher Hampton, based on Le Père by Florian Zeller
Composer: Ludovico Einaudi
Starring: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss, Olivia Williams, Imogen Poots
Currently showing in major cinemas across the U.K.
Comments