The Father (Movie)

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    ‘The Son’ Review: Father Doesn’t Know Best

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    Hugh Jackman plays the father of a troubled teenager in Florian Zeller’s leaden drama.At one point in “The Son,” directed by Florian Zeller and based on his play of the same name, a clinician briefs a divorced mother and father on their teenage son’s condition after a mental health emergency. “He’s in very good hands now,” the doctor says, referring to the hospital staff. “Now” is the key word; the implication is that the wealthy, well-meaning Peter (Hugh Jackman) and Kate (Laura Dern) are unfit to handle the issues their son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) is facing.In my professional opinion (I’m a critic, not a physician), the same should be said of the movie surrounding Nicholas, which tackles adolescent depression about as deftly as an estate lawyer performing open-heart surgery. Despite its contemporary New York City setting, “The Son” seems to have appropriated a midcentury understanding of mental illness, and the emotion on display feels even more artificial than the rooftop vista erected outside the windows of Peter’s industrial-chic Manhattan loft.Peter shares this apartment with his wife, Beth (Vanessa Kirby), and their infant son, and though his work as an attorney is consuming, he relishes his downtown idyll. But the sweetness curdles when Peter learns that Nicholas, who lives with Kate in Brooklyn, has been acting volatile and would prefer to move in with him. Never mind that the teenager is friendless, cutting class and has taken to self-harm; Kate and Peter agree that a change of scenery will restore the cheerful child they raised. (We eventually meet a 6-year-old Nicholas in flashbacks that are so euphoric they could double as airline commercials.)The leadenness of “The Son” is puzzling given the ingenuity of Zeller’s “The Father,” which positions the audience within the point of view of an aging man with dementia. (The film won two Oscars in 2021.) Unlike that triumph of subjectivity, “The Son” declines to probe the perspectives of Peter or Nicholas, compelling the audience to survey the wreckage of their relationship from a distance. It also leaves the actors seeming somewhat stranded, trading clunky lines or lurching into tantrums without the psychological depth to underpin their affliction. The movie may take place inside a pit of despair, but the theatrics leave us with the uncanny sensation of feeling nothing at all.The SonRated PG-13. Divorce and remorse. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Anthony Hopkins Wins Best Actor Over Chadwick Boseman

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      We have an upset.Anthony Hopkins, who won a best actor Oscar almost three decades ago (not two decades as was reported earlier), received another on Sunday, denying the late Chadwick Boseman a prize many thought would go to him posthumously. In a twist this year, the best actor award was the last one of the evening, resulting in an abrupt end to the ceremony, given that Hopkins was not in attendance.Hopkins, 83, was rewarded for his towering performance as a London patriarch struggling with dementia in the drama “The Father,” which appeared to gain momentum with voters down the homestretch of awards season. He is now the oldest actor to ever win an Oscar.“It was easy,” he told The New York Times about playing the role. “Just so easy.”In a review for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote, “Hopkins has never been an especially physical actor — most of the magic happens above the neck — but here he pushes his capacity for small, telling gestures and stillness to distressing limits.” She added, “It’s an astonishing, devilish performance.”Hopkins won the Oscar for best actor in 1992 for his performance in “The Silence of the Lambs”; he was nominated two more times in the category, in 1994 (“The Remains of the Day”) and 1996 (“Nixon”). He has also been nominated for best supporting actor twice, though has never won.Boseman won the Golden Globe for best actor earlier this season for his performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” one of dozens of awards he garnered for the Netflix adaptation. But Boseman never got to see the film; he died of colon cancer at age 43 three months before “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” was released. More

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      Anthony Hopkins Accepts Oscar, Paying Tribute to Chadwick Boseman

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      “At 83 years of age I did not expect to get this award,” Hopkins said of his best actor win in a video posted early on Monday morning.About four hours after he won best actor at the 93rd Academy Awards in an upset, Anthony Hopkins delivered his acceptance in a video from Wales, taking a moment to acknowledge the actor who had been widely expected to win posthumously, Chadwick Boseman.“At 83 years of age I did not expect to get this award — I really didn’t,” said Hopkins, who won for his role as a patriarch struggling with dementia in “The Father.”On Sunday night, Hopkins became the oldest actor to win the award, almost three decades after his first Oscar win in the category, for “The Silence of the Lambs.”The award provided a strange ending to the ceremony. When Boseman was awarded a Golden Globe for best actor earlier this year, the emotional acceptance speech given by his widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, was the emotional highlight of the night. Perhaps with that in mind, the Oscars switched the traditional order of categories this year so that the best actor award came last, after the best picture had already been awarded.Boseman, who had been widely expected to win, did not — and Hopkins was not present to accept the award in person or virtually, resulting in a stilted, anticlimactic ending.Chadwick Boseman, in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”David Lee/Netflix, via Associated PressSocial media erupted with indignation at the win, with many saying the award should have gone to Boseman for his role in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43 in August, months before “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” was released.“I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman who was taken from us far too early,” Hopkins said in his video, which was posted to social media.Posted in the morning in Wales, the video was short and sweet, with Hopkins thanking the typical cast of characters in the caption to his Instagram post: the film’s production company, his talent agency, his family.“Thank you all very much,” Hopkins said. “I really did not expect this.” More

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      ‘The Father’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      How Anthony Hopkins Inhabits ‘The Father’

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      The director Florian Zeller narrates a sequence from his Oscar-nominated drama about a man’s descent into dementia.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.A corridor. A cupboard. A caregiver.These may seem like innocuous elements in the domestic drama “The Father,” but when they change from one scene to another, they throw both the film’s lead character, Anthony (Anthony Hopkins), and the viewer, off balance.That sense of confusion is at the heart of Florian Zeller’s film (nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture), which tells the story of a man suffering from dementia by plunging the audience into his experience.In this breakfast sequence, Olivia Colman plays Anthony’s daughter and she is talking to him about the imminent arrival of a caregiver whom he’d met in a previous scene and who was then played by Imogen Poots. But when that woman arrives, a different actress, Olivia Williams, is playing her.“What I tried to do in ‘The Father’ is to put the audience in a unique position,” the director Florian Zeller said, “as if they were, in a way, in the main character’s head. And as a viewer, we have to question everything we are seeing.”He said he wanted the movie, which was based on his play, to be “not only a story, but an experience, the experience of what it could mean to lose everything, including your own bearings as a viewer.”Read the review of “The Father,”Read an interview with Anthony Hopkins.Read an interview with Florian Zeller about adapting “The Father” for the screen.Watch “The Father” on demand and in theaters.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      Producers Guild Nominations Boost ‘Chicago 7’ and ‘Nomadland’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nomination PredictionsOscars Dos and Don’tsOscars DiversityDirectors Guild NominationsBAFTA NominationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ProjectionistProducers Guild Nominations Boost ‘Chicago 7’ and ‘Nomadland’But some contenders were snubbed. The road to a best-picture Oscar nomination nearly always goes through this group, which may doom “Da 5 Bloods.”“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” featuring Jeremy Strong, center left, and Sacha Baron Cohen, was among the films included on the producers’ list.Credit…Nico Tavernise/Netflix, via Associated PressPublished More

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      Golden Globes 2021: What to Watch For

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonHow to Watch the GlobesWhat to ExpectOur Movie PredictionsGolden Globe NomineesGolden Globes SuitAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGolden Globes 2021: What to Watch ForThe Hollywood awards season starts in earnest with a socially distanced show that begins on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Streaming services are expected to dominate.Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman in “Mank,” about the making of “Citizen Kane.”Credit…NetflixFeb. 27, 2021, 5:00 p.m. ET More