Category: Family drama

The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)

Reverent adaptation of the most famous diary ever written, that drains it of any sense of life or drama

Director: George Stevens

Cast: Millie Perkins (Anne Frank), Joseph Schildkaut (Otto Frank), Shelley Winters (Petronella Van Daan), Richard Beymer (Peter Van Daan), Gusti Huber (Edith Frank), Lou Jacobi (Hans Van Daan), Diane Baker (Margot Frank), Ed Wynn (Albert Dussell), Douglas Spencer (Kraler), Dodie Heath (Miep Gies)

Few personal stories have had such a huge impact on so many people’s lives than Anne Frank’s diary. This literary marvel, written by a teenager who mixed profound insight with teenage obsessions, was a world-wide sensation when it was published after the war. The diary covers the over two years Anne, her family and their friends spent in hiding in a secret annexe in her father’s warehouse in Amsterdam. For Jews hiding from the barbaric persecution of the Nazi occupying forces, every day was a struggle between trying to lead as normal a life as possible and the terror of discovery and deportation to a concentration camp. Of course, we know, tragically, they were discovered – and only Anne’s father Otto survived the war.

Otto discovered the diary when he returned to Amsterdam after the liberation of Auschwitz. Moved by the diary’s mix of maturity and youth, Otto had it published first for friends and then more widely. At various points, parts of the diary were edited to remove more “personal” content (Anne wrote freely at points on her growing sexuality and was sometimes less than kind to the other occupants of the annexe). More modern editions have embraced a less edited, fuller diary that really allows us to see what a brilliant, challenging, sometimes judgemental, fully rounded teenager Anne was. The Diary of Anne Frank hails from an era that framed a more sanitised diary. The worst you can say for it is that I think there is a good chance the real Anne Frank would have found it a bit dull.

Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize winning play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, George Steven’s film is reverent, noble and very worthy. It also frequently lacks any pace or life, and is so concerned with being life-affirming that it filters out nearly all sense of tension or conflict that these eight people felt (which they often did living, as they did, in a few small rooms for over two years, with very little food). The film also centres a romantic relationship between Anne and Peter – one that, according to Anne’s own diary, was already coming to an end at their discovery (in reality, she felt they had little in common other than living in the annexe together).

But Stevens’ film is so concerned with framing someone as fascinating as Anne as a secular saint that it removes much of the vibrancy that gives the diary such impact. It also doesn’t help that Stevens shoots the film in a luscious black-and-white, in detailed sets – but also in the widest possible cinemascope. This does allow for some lovely shots – an image of Anne and Peter kissing in a monochrome shadow, before a door opens to bathe them in light is striking – but it sacrifices the most essential fact of the setting: its cramped smallness.

The widescreen frequently makes the annexe seem larger than it is

Who decided that a location defined by its claustrophobia and smallness was best captured in super-widescreen, I don’t know. But the wide angles make the annexe look a heck of a lot larger than it actually is (I’ve been there, I know it was more cramped than this!) and Stevens frequently frames the whole cast in shots which makes the annexe look positively cavernous.

The lack of claustrophobia has a serious impact on the story’s sense of drama. It also helps to filter out the tension. The script removes, or minimises, most of the key personal tensions in the annexe. We have moments of disagreement, but generally the inhabitants are shown to get on extremely well, with Anne herself practically perfect. This doesn’t really square with the diary, which is pretty open in Anne’s difficult relationship with her mother (with whom she felt no affinity), the clashes with the Van Daans and Mr Dussell (not their real names – Dussell basically translates as idiot, which gives a better impression of Anne’s difficult relationship with this unwanted roommate) or her later arguments with her father. Instead, things are smoothed out and nothing that could detract for a moment from the optimistic and hopeful message of the film is allowed.

The film also replicates several changes that the play made for dramatic effect. This most especially affects the character of Dussell (real name Fritz Pfeffer). In real life a respected dentist and pillar of the Jewish community, Dussell/Pfeffer here is a complacent, panicking imbecile, utterly ignorant of the Jewish faith and claims to have lived his whole life in Amsterdam with no idea he was a Jew. The real-life Pfeffer had in fact fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution. Played with a self-satisfied whininess by Ed Wynn (a famous TV comic, Oscar-nominated here for showing he could do drama), Dussell/Pfeffer is a joke. Pfeffer’s family cut ties with the Franks after the play was released.

Wynn’s nomination reflects how the broader performances in this film gained the most attention. Shelley Winters won an Oscar for her role as the blowsy Mrs van Daan – both van Daans are larger-than-life and obsessed with their status. More restrained and effective performances come from Gusti Huber as Anne’s shy and nervous mother and above all by Joseph Schildkraut as her wisely patient father. Richard Beymer gives an effective performance as a young Peter, straining against the leash of being stuck in a sort of suspended childhood.

As Anne, Millie Perkins looks the part in many ways – apart from the fact she is clearly too old. But there is something a little neutered and frankly a little too perfect about her performance. Her voice has a flat American twang to it that makes much of her voiceover a little wearing to listen to, especially as the tweeness is dialled up. I’m not sure she has the presence for the role – although she is not helped by the sanitised, earnest script.

Criticising The Diary of Anne Frank feels almost sacrilegious, like criticising the lives of the real people who went through something unimaginable to try and survive in a world of horror. But Stevens’ film is straining so hard to be reverent – and shaves the edges of its characters so much – that it turns them and their story into something much more easily digestible than it should be. It becomes a feelgood story, rather than something vibrant and alive. And that vibrancy is what has made Anne Frank live for so long after her murder. To create a film that captures so little of that, instead turning her into a conventional romantic heroine, just feels like it misses what made her unique.

King Richard (2021)

Richard Williams creates two of the greatest tennis stars ever in this easy-viewing star vehicle

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Cast: Will Smith (Richard Williams), Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Oracene “Brandy” Price), Saniyya Sidney (Venus Williams), Demi Singleton (Serena Williams), Jon Bernthal (Rick Macci), Tony Goldwyn (Paul Cohen), Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew (Tunde Price), Danielle Lawson (Isha Price), Layla Crawford (Lyndrea Price)

Sports movies have a very reliable formula. There’s the initial promise, early success, adversity, obstacles, a moment of doubt, a renewal of commitment and a final success. I think it’s fair to say that King Richard pretty much hits all the beats you expect. In fact, its pretty much exactly the film you expect it to be when it starts and doubles down hard on the charisma and charm of its star.

King Richard tells the story of how the Williams Sisters, Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton), took their very first steps towards dominating the world of tennis, as told through the eyes of their father Richard (Will Smith). Richard Williams had been determined from almost the moment his children were born, that he would never stop working (and push them) to build lives that would take them away from the working-class ghetto he grew up in. Teaching himself tennis coaching, from the moment they can hold a racket the girls are coached. But, being working class and black in a white-middle-class sport, Richard must work night-and-day to win professional coaching and playing opportunities for his daughters. Not to mention, struggling to ensure that they don’t forget their roots or get chewed up and spat out by the sport.

First and foremost, King Richard is a showpiece for Will Smith. The part fits him like a glove: Williams a larger-than-life, force-of-“Will” role that feels about 2/3^rds Williams and 1/3^rdSmith. With Williams fast-talking patter, never-give-up determination and absolute commitment to protecting his loved ones, the role plays to all Smith’s strengths. Smith gives a quintessential movie-star performance, which to-be-honest often feels like a Will Smith personality role (the modern equivalent of a Cary Grant performance), but is very entertaining because few people are as good at crafting their personae to benefit a movie as Smith is. Smith is heartfelt, earnest, loveable, sometimes slapable (Note: I wrote that before Smith’s slap-heard-around-the-world was forever attached to his Oscar-winning performance), but always a charming guy you root for.

Which is odd, as Richard Williams is a man with a mixed reputation. He was a demanding, argumentative, often controlling presence who irritated and alienated far more people on the tour than he befriended. Some saw him as a self-promoter, others as a man at times causing problems for his daughter’s careers. King Richard doesn’t shy away from showing these qualities – the awkwardness, the temper, the selfishness, the arrogance – but presents them all in the best possible light. The film is purest hagiography and Richard Williams is always vindicated in all his calls.

Awkwardly the film is also determined to give him all the credit for the Williams’ sisters success. Now there is merit in this – and the script was developed with the sister’s input, so it feels a bit presumptuous to get angry on their behalf. The sisters would never have become what they are if their father had not put rackets in their hands so young and invested hours in training them. Similarly, they would not have been as fully-rounded people without his constant mantra about family, humility and hard work. But also, they did have quite a bit of talent themselves – and certainly they profited from lessons they picked up from the other coaches they worked with.

However, one of the points King Richard is gently making – and it is gently made, as if the film was worried its crowd-pleasing potential might have been affected if it banged this drum too hard – is that Williams had to be a domineering figure because he was fighting against a racial divide in the sport. He feels out of place in the tennis country clubs because he is. No one else on the junior tour is anything other than white and well off. Every coach and trainer is applying methods that have worked for affluent middle-class athletes, without considering any adjustment might be needed for two young women coming from a totally different background.

You can argue the hagiography is partially a course correction from years of the only black father and coach on the tour being denounced as uppity, loud-mouthed, self-obsessed and intrusive. Its still made clear he shares these traits with many other tour parents, but adding to it a massive dose of supportive parenting. There are moments when the film addresses how Williams’ obsession that he knows best might just be starting to run the risk of alienating his daughters: in particular Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor delivers a blistering late speech (which probably got her an Oscar nomination by itself, so compellingly is it performed) where she lays out in no-uncertain-terms Williams many character flaws and damaging behaviours. (Coincidentally the film’s most compelling dramatic scene).

Maybe a bit of hagiography is what we need from a film designed to be an uplifting, triumph against the odds and celebration of one man’s fatherly love and devotion to give his daughters a chance to change their stars. The film is professionally directed by Green and some of the titbits of the sisters early training (throwing American footballs to build service strength among others) is fascinating.

The film is probably at least twenty minutes too long and starts at some points to repeat the same beats again and again. It doesn’t really do anything new and is exactly the sort of film you could predict it being. But it has some good performances, Smith is at the top of his (Oscar-winning) game, and it is an enjoyable, if predictable, feel-good watch.

Almost Famous (2000)

Cameron Crowe turns his youth into a hip coming-of-age film with just enough sting among the sentiment

Director: Cameron Crowe

Cast: Patrick Fugit (William Miller), Billy Crudup (Russell Hammond), Frances McDormand (Elaine Miller), Kate Hudson (Penny Lane), Jason Lee (Jeff Bebe), Zooey Deschanel (Anita Miller), Anna Paquin (Polexia Aphodisia), Fairuza Balk (Sapphire), Noah Taylor (Dick Roswell), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Lester Bangs), Terry Chen (Ben Fong-Torres), Jay Baruchel (Vic Munoz), Jimmy Fallon (Dennis Hope), Rainn Wilson (David Felton)

Cameron Crowe fictionalises his teenage years in the warm, affectionate Almost Famous, an endearing, heartfelt riff on the golden years of Rock ‘n’ Roll, when it felt like music could change the world and making the front cover of Rolling Stone was the greatest thing ever. Patrick Fugit plays William Miller (the Crowe substitute), a precocious 15-year-old would-be-music journalist recruited by Rolling Stone to write an article on Stillwater, an up-and-coming new band. Miller adores the music scene and is soon smitten with the lifestyle, Stillwater’s charismatic guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and most of all “Band Aid” (muse not groupie) Penny Lane (Kate Hudson).

Crowe’s film is a glorious reconstruction of the rock and roll scene of the early 70s – and I can imagine anyone with fond memories of it will find much to love here. It’s not just the fashions and hairstyles, but the glorious capturing of a mood. The whole film is a celebration of a time that felt freer and more idealistic, where the actions and words of a rock band could feel like the most important, beautiful thing in the world. The film is not just nostalgia but also a celebration of a mood of hopefulness that embodied an era.

It’s also a coming-of-age story, as a boy-becomes-a-man. Patrick Fugit is very endearing as a kid no one can quite believe is 15, even though every moment seems to hammer home his fresh-faced innocence. But then it’s not a complete surprise since, thanks to his strong-willed mother having moved him up a class at school and led him to believe he is older than he is. Nevertheless, this is the sort of trip that shapes someone, finding friendship, love, belonging, betrayal, righteous anger and acceptance along the way. All of this is backdropped by the shift of rock and roll becoming something corporations used to make a lot of money.

Stillwater are just on the cusp of this, still clinging to the fun of bussing from gig-to-gig, enjoying the mood, the songs and (of course) the girls. The film is also a celebration in a way of their coming-of-age, the tour starting in a ramshackle bus and ending on a sleek private jet, with accommodation switching from the bus to plush hotels. And along the way, they are trying to work out what they hell they are doing as much as William is. Perhaps that’s why the film feels like it captures the era so well – wasn’t everyone flailing around in the 70s trying to work out if they belonged to the hedonism of the 60s or what would become the Reagonism of the 80s?

But it’s still rock ‘n’ roll, best embodied by Billy Crudup’s charismatic turn as Band icon Russell Hammond. Crudup is all grungy magnetism and shuffling emotional gentleness under the surface of rock star swagger. Not that it stops him from moments of egotism, selfishness and pomposity. You can see why tensions are sometimes high in the band, with the rest of its members often seen as jut Russell’s support group (a band t-shirt causes fury when it shows Russell in the foreground with the other four as shadowy outlines behind him). Russell takes William under his wing, perhaps because he recognises the youth and fragility in William. Or maybe he just likes the hero-worship.

Because one of the dangers of getting close to these stars is getting sucked into hero worship. William is after all a journalist who needs to maintain objectivity. He’s even warned about it by his mentor, fabled music writer Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman in a charismatic cameo) that the biggest danger is succumbing to the charms of the celebrity: these are after all, people who have made it their mission in life to be liked. They’re going to be good at it.

Getting in their airspace can be a dangerous place, as discovered by leading Band Aid Penny Lane, played with a luminous, radiant warmth by Kate Hudson. Penny is a devoted fan, enraptured with being part of the scene and with her self-proclaimed role as muse to the artists. Based on a personal friend of Crowe’s – and, one supposes, his real-life first love – it’s Penny who draws William into this life, looks out for him, cares for him (a favour he is to return in kind). She starts an affair with Russell – but is banished when Russell’s girlfriend rejoins the tour, jokingly traded in a card game with another band for a crate of beer (a reveal Hudson plays with a beautiful mix of devastation and valiant nonchalance). It’s not that Russell’s a bad guy, more that he can’t cope with complexities.

So, you can see why William’s Mum – played with a larger-than-life mix of bullish determination, smothering love and control-freak determination by Frances McDormand – is so worried about him. It’s a sign of the film’s overall warmth (and Crowe’s well-adjusted personality!) that McDormand’s character is treated with the same affection and admiration as everyone else and the love between mother and son is never in doubt. She is responsible for some of the film’s highlights, not least a phone call to Russell where her natural authority quickly reduces him to the overgrown schoolboy he is at heart.

And Almost Famous is a very funny film, riffing off various true life rock-and-roll road trip stories, from raucous parties to accidental electrocutions, like a slightly straighter version of Spinal Tap. It’s capped by a hilarious near-disaster plane flight, where the end seems in sight, leading to a series of ‘confessions’ that become more and more heated and factious as they go on. It’s a film that shows some of the warts of the characters – just as William’s article eventually will for Stillwater – but also their many, many beauty spots. People make mistakes and hurt each other, but life goes on – and we take the punches, but they don’t define us.

Perhaps that’s a big part of growing up: and it’s a growing-of-age film for three characters: William, Penny and Russell. All three of these characters find themselves drawn together, all of them spiritually so close. They hurt each other, betray each other, but they all love each other. It’s a hopeful message, a glorious celebration of a time and era.

The Turning Point (1977)

Two women struggle to have it all in a film that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 1940s

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Shirley MacLaine (DeeDee Rodgers), Anne Bancroft (Emma Jacklin), Tom Skerritt (Wayne Rodgers), Leslie Browne (Emilia Rodgers), Mikhail Baryshnikov (Yuri Kopeikine), Martha Scott (Adelaide), James Mitchell (Michael Cooke), Alexandra Danilova (Madame Dakharova), Anthony Zerbe (Joe “Rosie” Rosenberg), Lisa Lucas (Janina Rodgers), Antoinette Sibley (Sevilla Haslem)

The demands of ballet are unlike any other artform there is. Complete physical and emotional commitment is needed to master it – so that means you got to make choices. The Turning Point is all about those choices. You might even call them ‘turning points’. DeeDee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) were two young ballerinas who took radically different paths: DeeDee had a child with fellow dancer Wayne (Tom Skerritt) and left the profession behind; Emma remained with the company to become its prima ballerina. Now DeeDee’s teenage daughter Emilia (Leslie Browne) has joined the company: will she become the new prima ballerina? Or will she decide to focus on a relationship with playboy dancer Yuri (Mikhail Baryshnikov)? Will Emma and DeeDee resolve the tensions between them – and the conflict from their shared parental interest in Emilia?

The Turning Point was a big hit in 1977. That, and the fact that it was about (and featured a lot of) an artform as graceful as ballet seems to have convinced the Academy it merited a haul of eleven Oscar nominations. Come awards night, the film set a record for most unsuccessful nominations, converting none of them into Oscars. Perhaps that’s because, on closer inspection, The Turning Point is a fairly run-of-the-mill soap opera, that mixes in various clichés from backstage, traditional ‘women’s pictures’ and family drama to come up with a plotline that’s eventually very familiar.

For all its positioning as a female-led drama, it essentially boils down to the same old patterns that for decades such films have circled. Turns out women can’t have it all: you can have that successful career, but forever sacrifice the joy of being a mother or you can settle down and have the family but face a life of career unfulfillment. Twas ever thus, ‘tis one or t’other. Essentially the film boils down into a soapy drama about resentments and illicit backstage affairs and little more than that. It doesn’t even really double down on the fun this sort of set-up could provide, instead framing the whole thing as a very serious drama.

But then, the film was an autobiographical affair for those involved. Emma is based on Nora Kaye, who was married to the director Herbert Ross. DeeDee is based on Kaye’s childhood friend Isabel Mirrow Brown, who made the exact same choice as DeeDee, marrying a fellow dancer (just like Tom Skerritt’s character). Her daughter (and Kaye’s goddaughter) was Leslie Browne, who here plays a fictionalised version of herself based on her own experience of starting her ballet career. Characters based on Jerome Robbins, Lucia Chase and other leading figures from ballet and theatre appear. Only Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Yuri is purely fictional (although the character has more than few similarities with Baryshnikov himself, being a Soviet defector).

It does give an additional layer of interest to the film. Ross also mixes in a host of extended ballet sequences which showcase actual professional ballet dancers, with snippets from Swan Lake, Cinderella and The Nutcracker among others. The dancing is breath-takingly good. Not least from Baryshnikov and Browne, who are given multiple opportunities to showcase their skills. Baryshnikov in particular is at the height of his powers, a graceful artiste who moves with an astonishing finesse. Both landed Oscar nominations, one suspects largely on the basis of their dancing.

The acting is left to MacLaine and Bancroft as the leading ladies. There is something a little perverse that MacLaine, the former dancer, doesn’t so much as trot a step, while Bancroft (totally unexperienced) struts parts of Anna Karenina. However, the two actresses rip into these thinly written parts, giving them a lot more force than the film deserves. MacLaine balances motherly pride with bubbling feelings of something uncomfortably close to envy for her daughter’s success, spending time in New York trying to recapture some of her past (including a brief fling with Anthony Zerbe’s lecherous choreographer). Bancroft balances coming to terms with the end of her career as a ballerina with a growing regret that she has been left without a family. She becomes increasingly close to Emilia, mentoring her, dressing her and coaching her through a performance after relationship problems lead to Emilia getting roundly pissed in a bar before the show.

Needless to say, this unspoken squabble for ownership over Emilia – not helped by Emilia’s fury over her mother’s infidelity – only exacerbates tensions between the two women. It builds towards the film’s true climax (but unfortunately not its actual climax, as fifteen minutes remain for Emilia to be coached for her star-making performance) as the two women down drinks and exchange angry words and slaps, leading to a full blown cat fight outside the theatre. The fight later descends into cathartic giggling – and pity the two actresses who filmed it in ballroom dresses in what looks like a gale – but is acted with a great deal of attack by both, who bounce off each other (literally) hugely effectively.

But the scene is also a further confirmation that what we are really watching is a sort of high-brow family soap, that uses ballet as a backdrop for family feuds, scuffles, sexual escapades and tear-filled reunions. And it boils down to that struggle between career and family, the sort of struggle Bette Davis and Joan Crawford films were dealing with in the 1940s. Which is possibly another reason so many took to The Turning Point: even in 1977 it was an old-fashioned piece of entertainment, that did very little new.

That carries across to its whole execution: Ross competently directs the film (this was his annus mirabilis as he directed two Best Picture nominees, this and The Goodbye Girl) but really it gets all the force it has (and more than it perhaps deserves) from the two leads and a fine supporting cast (Tom Skerritt is very good as DeeDee’s laid-back, understanding father who perhaps masks secrets of his own). It’s a soap opera, solid but not spectacular, that really outside its showcase of ballet, doesn’t stand out from several other films of the same genre.

The Sound of Music (1965)

It’s the classic, feel-good film that seems to divide people than few others

Director: Robert Wise

Cast: Julie Andrews (Maria von Trapp), Christopher Plummer (Captain van Trapp), Eleanor Parker (Baroness Elsa von Schraeder), Richard Haydn (Max Detweiler), Peggy Wood (Mother Abbess), Charmian Carr (Liesl), Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich), Heather Menzies (Louisa), Duane Chase (Kurt), Angela Cartwright (Brigitta), Debbie Turner (Marta), Kym Karath (Gretl), Daniel Truhitte (Rolfe)

Has there been any film in history that has aroused feelings as strong as this one? Busloads of tourists conduct pilgrimages to Salzburg to follow in its footsteps – it’s a bigger draw than Mozart. Sing-along performances are attended by people in costume who know every nuance of Do-Re-Mi. On the other side, those who loath this musical, do so with the burning heat of a thousand suns, practically cheering the Nazis on or choking back vomit at the opening note of Edelweiss. It was ever thus: The Sound of Music was slaughtered by critics – Pauline Kael called it “the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat” – but became a box-office phenomenon, one of the most popular films ever and gilded with Oscars aplenty.

It’s loosely based on the real-life experiences of the von Trapp family. Maria (Julie Andrews), a young novice, arrives at the home of the widowed Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) to serve as nurse for his seven (count em!) children. Von Trapp runs his house (literally) with military precision, but Maria introduces some fun into the children’s life. And, to his surprise, the Captain’s life as he finds himself drawn towards the wholesome and sweet Maria instead of his initial intended, the Baroness von Schraeder (Eleanor Parker). Marriage is inevitable – but then the family finds itself in a terrible position as the Anschluss weds Austria to Germany and the Captain is ordered to take up office in the Nazi navy. Will he do so – or will the family escape over those hills?

You would probably be fair to call The Sound of Music one of the most manipulative films of all time. But then aren’t films supposed to be about manipulating our emotions for effect? On that score you could possibly call it the greatest film ever made. I won’t, but there is a sentimental, feel-good charm to The Sound of Music that – in small doses (and some people watch this multiple times a year – once every few years is surely enough!) – can really hit the spot in the way few other films can. Sure, it tugs on your heart strings with never a trace of subtlety, but basically it’s heart is very much in the right place. It’s a kind, gentle music that, for all its treacle, is a tribute to warmth, love and family. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so embraced by so many.

Even the cast were aware it could all tip over the edge into outright sentimentality. Julie Andrews was worried it might be a little too similar to Mary Poppins (she was right in a way – Poppins is a darker film, but the success of this cemented Andrews in people’s mind as the World’s nanny). Most famously Christopher Plummer overcame huge uncertainty to star, partly to practise his singing for a Broadway musical (as it happened he got dubbed), partly on the promise he could add a tougher edge (no sign that happened). Plummer’s hate-tolerate relationship with the film is famous (he called it The Sound of Mucus) and at several points in it he is all too obviously only just avoiding sinking his head into his hands, but he even he eventually acknowledged any film that moved people as much as this, must have done something very right indeed.

It’s that emotional investment people make in this film that lifts it eventually above criticism. It’s a long film, with a slender plot. But it mines this plot for every single touch of emotional investment. It’s the ultimate triumph of one of Hollywood’s most reliable middle-brow directors, Robert Wise. Taking over from William Wyler (who just couldn’t get interested and left to make the almost diametrically opposite The Collector), Wise successfully keeps the momentum flowing and shoots the film in an economical way that lets the songs do their work. He still finds room for classic shots: that helicopter shot sweeping into Julie Andrews running up the hills is just about perfect (Andrews was literally blown over every time by the helicopter, explaining the sudden jump cut edit for her famous twirl and burst into song). Wise’s editing skills really come into play with Do-Re-Mi that cuts the song across several locations and he makes excellent use of a number of Salzburg locations (for which the tourist board thanks him).

A major part of the film’s success though must surely be directly connected to Julie Andrews. This is a career – perhaps even a life – defining performance. And even the most cynical watcher can’t help but admit Andrews is a superb, gifted performer. Her singing is beautiful, and very, very few performers could have managed to make Maria charming, sweet and someone who want to hug, rather than twee or slappable. Andrews makes you really invest in every single event in the film: she’s hugely endearing (from singing in those hills, to her little stumble of excitement as she runs from the Abbey to take up a job at the von Trapps), she’s completely unaffected and when she’s hurt (by her seemingly hopeless love for the Captain) you just want to give her a hug.

No wonder the children love her. Who wouldn’t? Sure, the film’s weakest beat might well be its romance between Andrews and Plummer (for which Plummer is mostly to blame), but it captures a wonderful sense of family loyalty and protection. Everyone, at some point, is a sucker for stories where sad and lonely children are introduced to a life where they can mess around and have fun – and get that emotional investment the Captain has (accidentally) denied them. After spending the first two hours of the film getting to know this family and seeing it come together, we feel even more intently their fear and panic at being forced into goose-stepping line with Hitler’s war machine.

The film’s final sequence around the Abbey is also surprisingly tense: the family sheltering behind tombs and trusting in the half-truths of the Nuns and the wavering loyalties of wannabe SA officer Rolfe to make their escape. Wise’s films successfully communicates the stakes. It also mixes in some comedy even here: the final lines going to the Nuns confessing their sins of sabotaging those Nazi cars. All this before we go back to where we started – Maria walking the hills, full of music, this time accompanied by a beloved new family.

It’s that desire to be part of a loving family that perhaps explains why The Sound of Music has been so popular – and why so many people turn to it for comfort time and again. With its heart-warming songs and themes, it’s a warm comfort blanket that makes people feel part of its loving family. You can’t argue against it being manipulative – but that’s the nature of films, and manipulation as effective and good-natured as this is a sort-of triumph of film-making art.

Being the Ricardos (2021)

I Love Lucy is bought to life in this behind-the-scenes drama that bites off more than it can chew

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Cast: Nicole Kidman (Lucille Ball), Javier Bardem (Desi Arnaz), JK Simmons (William Frawley), Nina Arianda (Vivian Vance), Tony Hale (Jess Oppenheimer), Alia Shawkat (Madelyn Pugh), Jake Lacy (Bob Carroll), Clark Gregg (Howard Wenke), John Rubenstein (Older Jess Oppenheimer), Linda Lavin (Older Madelyn Pugh), Ronny Cox (Older Bob Carroll)

A film about I Love Lucy is always going to lack cultural cache outside of the US: it would be the same if a British film about Dad’s Army or Hancock’s Half Hour played there. Without a legacy of growing up on endless re-runs, I think a lot of British audiences (like me) will be left playing catch-up working out who the stars are and what the show is about.

Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos follows one week in the making of I Love Lucy in 1952. It’s a big week. There are rumours of infidelity (from him) in the lives of the married co-stars Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem). On top of that, the media is running stories that Ball is a card-carrying communist (not completely true). And finally, she’s pregnant, something the network can’t imagine would be acceptable to include in a family show. All these problems come to a head as that week’s show is finalised, rehearsed and shot.

Sorkin’s film is by far and away at its best when dealing with the backstage mechanics behind bringing a TV show to the screen. Which perhaps isn’t a surprise, as that is obviously material he’s very familiar with. The film is fascinating at showing the technical side of things like rehearsals, and it’s very illuminating on the dedicated perfectionism Ball bought to making the comedy work. We see every single gag being worked on over and over to mine the maximum number of laughs from it. There are long back and forth conversations on timing, positioning and nuances of line delivery.

There are similarly fascinating ideas during scenes in the writers’ room. A huge board maps out the details of future episodes. The writers – a neatly squabbling but fundamentally loyal Alia Shawkat and Jake Lacy, headed up by executive producer Tony Hale – are constantly pushed to fine-tune their ideas, while passionately defending many of their own jokes to the sceptical stars.

A sequence essentially showing Ball and the writers spit-balling ideas that will develop into future set-pieces is particularly well done. Sorkin also comes up with a neat visual concept showing how Ball considers the impact of the gags: events from the show play out in black-and-white then switch to colour as the action pauses and Ball considers what to do next to get the most laughs. It’s all part of the film’s primary strength: a fascinating look at the energy and passion required to produce a half-hour sitcom, be it arguing over camera placement to a sleepless and worried Ball calling her co-stars to the studio in the wee small hours to fine-tune a pratfall.

Where the film is less certain is all the other stuff it tries to cover. Being the Ricardos is almost the dictionary definition of a film biting off more than it can chew. It tries to cover: the making of a TV show, McCarthyism, a biography of the marriage of the two stars, the sexism of network TV, racial unease at the Cuban Arnaz playing Ball’s husband, the sexual prudishness of the 1950s, and expectations around gender roles. On top of which, Sorkin’s film trumpets continuously that this was the “most difficult week ever”. It’s an onslaught of stakes the film finds hard to deliver on.

For starters, most of the action focuses on the mechanics of making the show – mechanics that surely would be the same every week. The communist plotline is introduced then largely dropped for most of the film until the final rousing hurrah. McCarthyism is barely tackled, other than a new perspective from Arnaz, who remembers being forcibly driven from Cuba by Communists. Awkward flashbacks fill in some of the backstory around Lucille and Desi’s meeting but end up feeling like superfluous additional information that adds nothing to anything other than the runtime.

Tensions in their marriage bubble away before finally coming to a head, as if Sorkin didn’t want to spoil the rat-a-tat dialogue with some deeper content. The film is very good at showing what a great team they made: Ball’s creativity and comic genius matched with Arnaz’s business-sense and ability to plan every aspect of the show’s technical and financial set-up. But again, more could have been made of this – too often it’s an idea crowded in amongst others, with a tone that can’t decide how it feels about Arnaz’s possible betrayal or Ball’s fixation on it.

More could have been made about the prudish and sexist struggles Ball and Arnaz went through to get her pregnancy integrated in the show. It’s a fascinating realisation that the implication that a happily married couple must have had sex to produce a baby was anathema to TV networks in the 50s. A film that focused on the battle to get this integrated into the show – and the impact that doing so had on America and television – would not only have been more focused, it would also have played into the film’s real strengths: the mechanics of actually making television. As it is, this sense of the struggle Ball had to get due recognition in a male-dominated industry is lost.

As the two stars Nicole Kidman (under layers of latex to transform her facial features into Ball’s) and Bardem are very good, Kidman in particular brilliantly conveying Ball’s comedic genius as well as her self-doubt and insecurity, expressing itself in worries about her marriage to making sure her female co-star looks less attractive than her on the screen. Kidman pounces on Sorkin’s fast-paced dialogue and provides much of the film’s drive and focus. There are also neat supporting turns by JK Simmons and especially Nina Arianda as their co-stars.

In the end though, yet again, it feels like Sorkin the writer is ill-served by Sorkin the director. While the film is more sharply directed than his others, it lacks focus, discipline and drive, like Sorkin can’t bear the idea of cutting some of his own words and ideas so tries to include them all. It ends up meaning nearly all of them lack the impact they should have.

Another Year (2010)

Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent are either a blissfully happy and kind or rather smug couple in Another Year

Director: Mike Leigh

Cast: Jim Broadbent (Tom Hepple), Ruth Sheen (Gerri Hepple), Lesley Manville (Mary Smith), Peter Wight (Ken), Oliver Maltman (Joe Hepple), David Bradley (Ronnie Hepple), Karina Fernandez (Katie), Martin Savage (Carl Hepple), Michele Austin (Tanya), Phil Davis (Jack), Imelda Staunton (Janet)

Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are a blissfully content middle-class London couple. He’s a successful geologist, she’s an attentive NHS counsellor. They divide their time between work, their allotment and socialising with friends. But many of their friends are disaster zones. Gerri’s work colleague Mary (Lesley Manville) is a divorcee who falls over herself to tell people how happy she is, but is clearly depressed with a drink problem. Similarly, Tom’s old uni friend Ken (Peter Wight) is a lonely alcoholic, seriously overweight and equally depressed.

The fascinating question at the heart of Mike Leigh’s heart-felt and beautiful film is: are Tom and Gerri a sweetly loving couple who go out of their way to support friends – or are they a desperately smug pair, facilitating those around them in self-destructive patterns? It’s hard to say either way: and that’s the beauty of Leigh’s honest, subtle character study which presents a single year in the lives of these characters.

It’s also, of course, superbly acted by the cast – all of them regulars in the work of Leigh. Broadbent and Sheen are brilliant as a couple completely content and happy in themselves and confident that they essentially have life sussed. They are kind, considerate and supportive of everyone. But how much is this genuine and how much is it performative? They fuss and smile to each other around the depressed and fragile Mary – but do nothing to help her change and improve her life, and merrily continue to fill the glasses of both her and the even more alcohol ravaged Ken.

When Tom’s sister-in-law dies, they rush to support his quiet, reserved brother Ronnie (David Bradley). They arrange every detail of the funeral and do everything they can to remove any burden from him. Tom is furious at the selfish and uncaring attitude of Ronnie’s son Carl (a grimly chippy Martin Savage) who seems convinced he is somehow being cheated by them. They bring Ronnie back to stay with them for a few weeks – but frequently leave him alone or allow him to sit watching their own insular conversations. Sure, they give him a home and support, but do they really care or are they going through the motions of people who want to believe they really care?

Wouldn’t a real friend of Ken, tell the obviously over-weight, permanently drunk, desperately self-loathing man that he has serious problems and help him change his life, rather than refill his glass at every opportunity? Or is it a sign of Tom and Gerri’s decency that they don’t see it as their place to tell other people to live their lives? In addition, Tom sticks loyally by Ken in a way very few people would – its clear during a golf game with Ken, Tom, son Joe (Oliver Maltman) and pal Jack (Phil Davis) no-one else wants Ken there – and gives him more warmth and attention than you suspect anyone else ever has. Does it just not occur to him a real friend would help Ken change his life?

Above all, we see the frantic desperation and all-consuming anxiety, fear and neediness of Mary, played with a heartfelt and deeply moving frankness by a never-better Lesley Manville. Mary is a very sweet woman, who has lost her place in the world and clings to the idea – now long since departed from reality – that she is a young glamour puss, rather than a desperate, divorcee in her fifties. Tom and Gerri support Mary, making her a part of their lives. She is a frequent overnight guest in their house, has known Joe since he was little and relies on Gerri utterly for friendship.

But there is also a slight air of judgement with their treatment of Mary. Does having this all-too-obviously tragic case, this failure who is utterly emotionally dependent on them, make them feel better about themselves? What have they done over the years, for all those sympathetic ears and shoulders to cry on, to help Mary deal with the root cause of problems? While they are willing to listen at great length to her (often tedious and repetitive) conversation, they never once really step into help her effect real change.

Events bubble up as the lonely Mary begins to fixate on a fantasy of her forming a relationship with Joe. It’s implied everyone is aware of this, but politely do their best to hope the situation will go away. Manville is of course brilliant in playing the tragically self-deluded hope under this longing for a never-will-be relationship – particularly as she never once looks down on Mary, but plays with a real empathetic warmth, that helps us feel an immense sorrow for this woman, while still acknowledging she can be deeply frustrating.

And Mary perhaps has more warmth, and ability to connect naturally with people, than Tom and Gerri. This is suggested during a wonderful late scene with Ronnie (a brilliantly quiet David Bradley), where in a long conversation she forms more of a bond of him than we’ve seen Tom and Gerri, for all their patience, ever form. It’s impossible not to relate to Mary as she’s so clearly such a vulnerable person, desperate for love and human connection. Seeing her slow-motion collapse across the film is heart-rending. For all her flaws, she’s someone you are desperate to see happy.

Mike Leigh is able to capture all this in his beautifully observant film, perfectly placed, low-key but deeply affecting. There are never obvious beats and he is willing to show the positives as well as the flaws in every character. He never tips the deck either for or against Tom and Gerri, allowing us to judge them by their actions: they could be warm, friendly, open-house people who stick loyally to troubled friends most people would drop immediately; or they could be subconsciously using these tragic cases to feel even more blissfully happy with their own perfect lives. Leigh never tips it either way, and the breathtakingly emotional performances and beautifully played and written scenes mean that, even though the film is short on plot, it feels rich in character and emotion. It ends with a beautiful held long shot on Mary that, like the rest of this film, is deeply moving but also leaves you with more questions than answers. A triumph.

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Benedict Cumberbatch rules his ranch with an iron fist in Jane Campion’s extraordinary The Power of the Dog

Director: Jane Campion

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch (Phil Burbank), Kirsten Dunst (Rose Gordon), Jesse Plemons (George Burbank), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Peter Gordon), Thomasin McKenzie (Lola), Genevieve Lemon (Mrs Lewis), Keith Carradine (Governor Edward), Frances Conroy (Old Lady), Peter Carroll (Old Gent)

At one point in The Power of the Dog, Phil Burbank, monstrously domineering Montana Rancher, stares out at his beloved hills. Where others see only rocks and peaks, Phil sees how (like a cloud) they form themselves into looking like a howling dog. Seeing things others do not is something Phil prides himself on. It’s also something The Power of the Dog excels out: it’s a continually genre- and tone-shifting film that starts as a gothic, du Maurier-like dance among the plains and ends as something so radically different, with such unexpected character shifts and revelations, you’ll be desperate to go back and watch it again and see if you can see the image of a dog among its rocks.

In Montana in 1925, two brothers run a ranch. George (Jesse Plemons) is polite, formal and quiet, seemingly under the thumb of his aggressively macho, bullying brother Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch). Phil is fully “hands-on” on the ranch, priding himself on being able to perform every task, from rope weaving to bull skinning, all of which he learned from his deceased mentor “Bronco” Henry. Things change though when George marries Rose (Kirsten Dunst). Phil takes an immediate dislike to Rose, engaging into a campaign of psychological bullying that drives Rose to drink. However, at the same time a strange bond develops between Phil and Rose’s student son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) – is Phil’s interest in the boy part of a campaign to destroy Rose or are there other forces at work?

Campion’s film (her first in over ten years) is a fascinating series of narrative turns and genre shifts. It opens like a gothic Western. The ranch is a huge, isolated house surrounded by rolling fields and its own rules. Phil is an awe-inspiring, still-living Rebecca with Rose a Second Mrs de Winter having to share a bathroom with the perfect first wife. The psychological war Phil launches against Rose, like a hyper-masculine Mrs Danvers, seems at first to be heading towards a plot where we will see a vulnerable woman either crushed or fighting back. Then Campion shifts gears with incredible professional ease; the kaleidoscope shifts and suddenly our perceptions change along with the film’s genre, which becomes something strikingly different.

This all revolves around the character of Phil. Excellently played (way against type) by Benedict Cumberbatch, in a hugely complex performance, Phil at first seems an obvious character. A bully and alpha male who mocks George as “Fatso”, hurls homophobic slurs at Rose’s sensitive, artistic son and would-be doctor Pete, and treats his duties with such masculine reverence that the idea of wearing gloves to skin a cow or washing the dirt of his labour from him is anathema.

But look at Phil another way and you see his vulnerability. The opening scenes play as a torrent of abuse to George. But look again and you see this is a man desperately trying multiple angles to clumsily engage his brother in joint reminiscences. His emotional dependence on George is so great that they still share a single bedroom in their giant house (and even a bed in a guest house, like Morecambe and Wise) and he weeps on their first night apart. Despite his brutish appearance, his conversation is littered with classical and literary allusions (we discover later he is a Yale Classics graduate). His life is devoid of emotional and physical contact and he maintains a hidden retreat in the woods, a private den the only place we see him relax.

He’s a man clinging desperately to the past. At first it feels like he has never grown up, that he is still a boy at heart. But Campion slowly reveals his emotional bonds to his deceased mentor Bronco (whom he refers to almost constantly in conversation) to be far deeper and more complex than first anticipated. He treats Bronco’s remaining belongings with reverence, maintaining a shrine to him in the barn and cleaning his saddle with more tenderness and care than he feels able to show any human being. The depths of this relationship are crucial to understanding Phil’s character and the emotional barriers he has constructed. His gruff aggression hides a deep isolation and loneliness, feelings Campion explores with profound empathy in the film’s second half.

That doesn’t change the monstrousness of the bullying Phil enacts on Rose. Played with fragile timidity by Kirsten Dunst, Rose becomes so grimly aware of Phil’s loathing that is too paralysed by intimidation to even play Strauss on her newly purchased piano in front of George’s distinguished guests (Phil pointedly plays the music far better on his banjo and takes to whistling in in Rose’s presence) and later tips into alcoholic incoherence.

Despite Dunst’s strong performance, if the film has a flaw it is that we don’t quite invest in Rose enough to empathise fully with her emotional collapse. Both she and George (a fine performance of not-too-bright-decency from Plemons, in the least flashy role) disappear for stretches and play out parts of their relationship off camera, making it harder to bond with them (a bond the earlier part of the film needs). It perhaps might have been more effective to centre the film’s opening act on Rose rather than Phil, allowing us to relate to her better and feel her decline more.

Dunst however nails Rose’s growing fear, desperation and depression while her status as an unwelcome guest is constantly forced on her. Her panic only deepens with the return of her son Peter. This is where the film takes a series of unexpected shifts. To the surprise of all Phil offers to take the sensitive, quiet Pete under his wing: perhaps he’s impressed by Pete’s indifference to the homophobic abuse from the ranch-hands, perhaps he sees a chance to spiritually resurrect his mentor by playing the same role himself to Phil (pointedly, the film implies the younger Phil may not have been dissimilar from Pete). Either way, Campion’s film heads into its extraordinary and deeply impactful second half as an unsettling and uncertain personal drama between two men who seem totally different but may perhaps have more similarities than expected.

As Peter, Kodi Smit-McPhee gives a wonderfully judged performance of inscrutability and reserve. He’s an artistic boy who creates detailed paper flowers and keeps artistic scrapbooks, but can dissect animals without a flinch and snaps the neck of an injured rabbit with ease. He seems alternately devoted to his mother then queasily distant from her, calling her Rose and unsettled by her drunken inappropriateness. His motivations remain enigmatic, just as Phil’s motivations for befriending this isolated and very different boy could fall either way. Smit-McPhee and Cumberbatch are both extraordinarily good in the scenes between this unlikely partnership, and Campion’s artful film keeps us on our toes as to precisely what they want from this friendship. The result is haunting.

It leads into a stunning final act which demands we re-evaluate all we have seen and leaves such a lasting impression I was still re-living the film in my mind days later. Campion’s film is masterfully shot and carries a wonderful atmosphere of intimidation and unease, helped hugely by Johnny Greenwood’s brilliant score with its unsettling piano-inspired cadences. It reinvents itself constantly, Campion’s direction shifting tone and genre masterfully. It’s quite brilliantly acted and provides Cumberbatch in particular with an opportunity he seizes upon to slowly reveal depths of emotion and vulnerability an outwardly straight-forward monster. There won’t be many finer films released in 2021: and this will be a classic to sit alongside The Piano in Campion’s work.

The Farewell (2019)

Awkwafina leads an impressive ensemble cast in Lulu Wang’s excellent film

Director: Lulu Wang

Cast: Awkwafina (Billi Wang), Tzi Ma (Haiywan Wang), Diana Lin (Lu Jian), Zhao Shu-zhen (Nai Nai), Lu Hong (Little Nai Nai), Jiang Yongbo (Haibin), Chen Han (Hao Hao), Aoi Mizuhara (Aiko), Zhang Jing (Yuping), Li Xiang (Aunty Ling), Yang Xuejian (Mr Li)

When you have lived your life as part of two different cultures, it can be difficult reconciling them together. It’s something Lulu Wang has personal experience of, born in China and moving to America aged 6. She grew up American, but with a strong Chinese heritage – and a family who held some sharply different cultural expectations than she had grown used to in her adopted country. Wang explores these details with warmth, insight and wit in the semi-autobiographical The Farewell, based on events that happened in her own family.

Billi Wang (Awkwafina) is a young graduate in America, working out what the next step of her life will be. All this is put on hold when she hears from China her paternal grandmother “Nai Nai” (Zhao Shu-zhen) has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and has only months to live. As per Chinese custom, the family decide to keep her diagnosis a secret from her so she can enjoy the last few months of her life untroubled by worry and fear. Billi and her parents Haiywan (Tzi Ma) and Lu Jian (Diana Lin) fly to Changchun to attend a hastily arranged wedding of Billi’s cousin – the wedding being an excuse for the family to come together for one last time. But, arriving in Changchun, Billi struggles between her desire to tell Nai Nai the truth and the desire of her family (however difficult they find it) to maintain Chinese cultural beliefs.

In another world The Farewell could have been an out-and-out comedy of cultural clashes and misunderstandings. That’s not to say the film itself doesn’t have a great deal of wit in it. But Wang has directed a sharply intelligent, respectful, compassionate and heartfelt exploration of cultural legacy and split loyalties between them, that refuses easy answers or moral judgements. Instead, it encourages a great deal of thought: what would you do in this situation? Whose values are ‘right’ – those of your adopted home, or those of your family heritage? Is it even right to think in these terms of one being more legitimate than another? How does returning to the country of your birth make you reflect about the things you left behind or have forgotten?

It all comes out beautifully in Awkawafina’s delicate and tender performance as Billi. Returning to China reminds her of parts of her own past she has nearly forgotten. It’s not just changes in the land where she grew up. It’s the memory of that childhood trauma of being taken halfway across the world to a new country, leaving everything she had ever known behind. Of remembering her grandfather died shortly after they left, having been told the same story as Nai-Nai, and she never saw him again. And seeing that whole cycle about to repeat again and struggling to square that with her Western ideal to be open and truthful.

But is that the right thing? For many watching in the West, we will of course assume at first ‘yes’. But, as an English-educated young doctor in a hospital points out, what harm does it really do when you can work instead to make someone’s last few months happy and free of fear? After all, you can’t change the diagnosis. And is, as the film implies, wanting to share the truth as much, if not more, about you more than it is the person you are telling?

After all, it’s not as if the family isn’t torn apart emotionally about the impending loss. Many of them at various points choke back tears and it’s clear the pressure of maintaining the front of the happy wedding is taking its toll on everyone. Billi’s dad and brother drown mountains of beer one night and even take up smoking again. The bride and groom are so distracted by the pressure, Nai Nai worries people will think it’s a shotgun wedding. Billi is even barred at first from the wedding because her family are worried she won’t be able to keep up the pretence that all is well at a joyous celebration.

Billi’s uncle Haibin points out that this ties in with a more Chinese collectivist way of thinking, Death is a terrible burden – surely its better for the whole family unit to share it among themselves rather than force it all onto the sufferer. Nai Nai would certainly agree – it’s revealed during the film she was part of a similar lie to her husband. For our Western eyes, a more individualised view of people having all the choice themselves seems more important, but The Farewell’s strength is showing that such a view – well-meaning as it is – can also be an arrogant imposition of thinking what you instinctively believe is more legitimate than another cultures.

It’s a fascinating insight into discussions and conflicts that must be occurring in families all over our newly shrunk globe. And this might make it sound like a tough film to watch, but it’s not. It’s manages also to be wonderfully warm and life-affirming and if it tugs the heartstrings, its because Wang directs it with such truth and empathy for all the characters. Their little idiosyncrasies ring very true and the film is crammed with moments of small but truthful family humour.

It’s also superbly performed. Awakwafina is excellent. Zhao Shu-zhen manages to transcend the cliché of the larger-than-life older woman, by making Nai Nai a force of nature, but also wise and gentle with a slight air of determined sadness. Tzi Ma and Diana Lin are wonderful as Billi’s parents, quietly juggling their own mixed feelings. The film mines some gentle humour from how Billi’s family Westernised ways have made them, at times, strangers in China and the actors all achieve the difficult feat of actually feeling like a real family on screen – private jokes, natural warmth, and an emotional short-hand.

The Farewell is a gentle, charming but very thought-provoking movie that asks intriguing questions about multi-cultural families and the difficulties second-generation migrants have with balancing the culture of their ancestors with the world they have grown up in. With plenty of humour and an abundance of warmth, it’s got something for everyone.

The Father (2020)

Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins excel in Florian Zeller’s sublime The Father

Director: Florian Zeller

Cast: Anthony Hopkins (Anthony), Olivia Colman (Anne), Rufus Sewell (Paul), Imogen Poots (Laura), Olivia Williams (The Woman), Mark Gatiss (The Man)

Is there any worse nightmare than the thought of losing your mind? Worse of all, to lose your mind in stages: to be aware, in every moment, that things are not as they should be, that people and places no longer seem to fit your memory of them. That you can walk into a room and completely forget why or meet someone close to you and have no a clue who they are. It’s an unimaginable condition to go through – and the subject of Florian Zeller’s exceptional adaptation of his award-winning play, The Father.

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is a retired engineer slowly succumbing to dementia. Events are increasingly confusing to him. Is he living in his own flat, or is he living with his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman)? Is Anne moving to France or not? Is she married to Paul (Rufus Sewell) or not? Where is his other daughter who looks so like a woman who may-or-may-not be his new carer, Laura (Imogen Poots)? From moment-to-moment Anthony struggles with confusion, rage and fear as the world constantly fails to coalesce into a meaningful picture, but instead remains a fragmented jumble.

That’s the brilliance behind Zeller’s adaptation of his own award-winning play. It captures the perspective of the world for those suffering from dementia in a way no film has done before. The play’s timeline is disjointed in an almost Nolan-esque way, and it’s not clear whether we are watching ‘real’ events’ or if all of these events are memories of Anthony’s which dementia has shuffled, reordered and recast. Either way, the film constantly refuses to allow you any grounding from scene-to-scene, and refuses to present clear answers (although you can infer much).

Even the sets betray us. From to scene to scene the apartment is redressed, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in jarringly different ways. The same fundamental layout sees every room constantly redesigned. Sometimes it could be Anthony’s apartment. Sometimes Anne’s apartment. Sometimes a mix of the two. Sometimes it’s a hospital, in others a retirement home. Often it might be a combination of one or more of these locations all at once. The style of decoration is inconsistent, the furniture changes, pictures move, even the colours of bedsheets change. Every single scene disorientates us: it’s only a movie for us, but for Anthony this is his life.

In fact, if The Father has a filmic influence, interestingly it’s a horror-film. Anthony is a man trapped in a situation where he knows everything is wrong, but can never fully understand why, or get people to listen to him. Often the camera catches discomfort and fear on Hopkins’ face, and it’s clear he neither knows where he is or, in many cases, who the people with him are. But for fear of not being believed or a sense of powerlessness, he’s too proud and scared to ask. It taps into the powerlessness of horror films, where you are relentlessly chased by a force outside your control: in The Father that force is life, which has become for Anthony a disturbing kaleidoscope where everything makes sense to everyone except him.

Of course, a large part of this is sold by Anthony Hopkins Oscar-winning lead performance. Hopkins delivers to an astonishing degree: this might just be the greatest performance of his career. Although we see flashes of ‘the true Anthony’ – his wit, playfulness and intelligence – Hopkins deftly and subtly demonstrates the wildly varying mood swings dementia brings. At times he’s paranoid, defensive and even aggressive. At others he’s stunningly vulnerable and scared – he has two breakdown scenes of such heart-breaking vulnerability and boyish fear, they are tough to watch.

The film opens with Anne telling Anthony she’ll be leaving for Paris, and Hopkins’ face collapses into a crumpled, puffy, scared-little-boy face while he plaintively asks what will happen to him. Anthony fixates on things that give him any sense of control: he is obsessed with his watch, hiding it and continuously searching for it. He will dredge up a fact from the distant past to ‘prove’ he has not lost his memory. He snaps angrily when he feels he is being talked down to. His resentment expresses itself in viciously cruel verbal assaults on Anne, labelling her a disappointment, failure and his least favourite child. Then a few scenes later he’ll squeeze her shoulder and quietly and lovingly thank her for everything she has done for him. All of this is delivered by Hopkins with no grand-standing, but with a hugely affecting truthfulness. It’s an astonishingly good performance.

Every scene carefully demonstrates time and again Anthony’s fear and vulnerability. Actors are even replaced by other actors in several scenes. In Anne’s second appearance she is played by Olivia Williams. In a beautiful piece of subtle acting by both Hopkins and Williams, it’s clear Anthony doesn’t recognise Anne and she realises this but decides not to say anything. Anne’s husband (or boyfriend – Anthony remains unclear, so at times so do we) Paul (as he’s called most of the time) is mostly played by Rufus Sewell, but sometimes by Mark Gatiss. Paul is the closest the film has to an antagonist, although much of that is filtered through Anthony’s confused perception and, in any case, Paul is right that Anthony’s condition is making it too difficult for him to remain at home.

And we can see his point. Although each scene more-or-less makes sense within itself, the complete film is like looking at a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces upside down and no picture, and then being asked to assemble it. In one particularly brilliant dinner scene, the film starts with Anthony witnessing a conversation between Paul and Anne, then loops through the scene and ends with Anthony witnessing exactly the same conversation again. The film is a deliberately, brilliantly, opaque tableau that defies easy meaning.

In all, The Father is a quite unique and brilliant film, that translates a theatrical piece into something highly cinematic. Hopkins is breath-taking, but Colman is also superb as Anne, in a part tailor-made for her ready empathy and easy emotionalism. Zeller’s direction is astonishingly confident and dynamic for a first-timer and the film slots you into the world of a dementia sufferer with an alarming immediacy. A superb film.