And just think, everyone means well.
“When Did You
Last See Your Father” invites us to think about that question without trying to
teach us a lesson. It is a merciful truth of this fine movie that it resists
both sentimentality and resolution.
How many
parent/child relationships remain unresolved? After eighteen years of childhood,
how many children really wonder who their parents have become after raising
them, seeing them instead simply as older versions of who they once were? In
this movie, Blake Morrison carries a permanent scar of anger toward his father
Arthur (Jim Broadbent). When Blake goes to visit the dying Arthur, we learn why
as director Anand Tucker’s extremely clever flashbacks bring us the full measure
of the son’s childhood embarrassments at the hands of his father.
Arthur’s sins
weren’t corrosive; they were of the eroding kind. He loved to be with people and
he inflicted on them his relentless good cheer. His friends may have loved it
but his wife and son withdrew into a permanent state of apprehension. What would
Dad say next to embarrass them? Because this is Blake’s story, his mother Kim
(Juliet Stevenson) suffers off to one side, but believe me, Mr. Morrison, who
wrote the book this movie is based on, could easily write a second book about
his mother.
Arthur had no
bad intentions. His habit of joking to friends about his son in front of the boy
may even have shown how much he loved him, but to Blake the small boy (Bradley
Johnson) and Blake the teenager (Matthew Beard), the paternal cheer meant
nothing but humiliation. We see Arthur’s love in a wonderfully prolonged driving
lesson on the beach that starts with embarrassment and ends in smiles. His love
is there; it is just covered most of the time in the humiliation of a 16 year
old who can’t possibly understand the equation.
Juliet
Stevenson’s Kim, withdrawn in defense against the husband’s high spirits, steps
out of her shell only to protect her children from embarrassment. The innocent
young Blake, wide-eyed in pure adoration, morphs into Matthew Beard’s marvelous
teenager whose resentment of his hearty father accelerates through the ordeal of
being his son. Colin Firth’s Blake cannot erase his anger. He comes to Arthur as
death approaches, but he comes on his own terms: talk to me, Dad. Dad can’t, and
the son cannot rise to the moment by accepting that.
Jim Broadbent
and Colin Firth absorb us thoroughly as the father and son unable to transcend
themselves. Their mutual sadness is perhaps best shown in an early metaphor.
Stuck in traffic and late for an auto race, Arthur passes traffic on the right
to the fury of everyone stuck in the long, patient line and talks his way
shamelessly into an A class parking lot. Mother protects her children by
engaging them in song to drown out the discomfort wrought by the father who
never understands that he is inflicting humiliation. And just think, everyone
means well.
Copyright (c) Illusion