Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins in The Father

THE FATHER
Directed by Florian Zeller
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆

ANTHONY is what some may call a “handful” – an older man, slowly slipping into a form of dementia, who is raging against the dying of the light and isn’t making it easy for those who care for him.

Having scared away the most recent person employed to help him manage, the world of the retired engineer (Anthony Hopkins) is twisted further when his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), tells her dad she is moving to Paris.

Her guilt is obvious, as is the trying task of finding someone who can care for him while she is gone. We discover that she feels her care for him has already stymied one relationship – and her trip to France is because of a new man. The horrible sense of having to choose between her father and her own happiness is torrid.

This establishes the premise for an extremely harrowing and utterly brilliant story of what it may be like to find the familiar not recognisable any more.

Based on a theatre play, director and writer Florian Zeller takes us inside Anthony’s head, giving us a horribly real sense of what he is going through and the confusion he is experiencing.

Hopkins, who rightly won the Best Actor Oscar for this performance, shows his mettle as a truly great actor here. His ability to portray the confusion, the worry and the dislocation between what he has learned through experience – a wisdom of the ages that he knows he can trust – and then this new reality, is so brilliantly done. It is utterly terrifying.

Little tricks bring his condition alive – subtle changes to the set offer an idea of how it must be to wake up each day and be unsure of who, where or what you are.

Zeller also uses different actors (Mark Gatiss, Rufus Sewell) for the same role to illustrate the confusion and bring the audience deep within Anthony’s sphere of experience, allowing us to feel another layer of horror and compassion.

Add to this support by Colman and The Father offers a compelling and insightful vision of the power of the mind.