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THE FATHER

By Florian ZELLER

PVR INOX PICTURES LTD/PVR INOX LTD. - as DISTR Theatrical, TV, DVD-video

Drama - Completed 2020

A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages. As he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.

Festivals
& Awards

Academy Awards 2021

Winner Oscar Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role and Best Adapted Screenplay and also other 32 wins and 157 nominations

- Year of production
- 2020
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- UNITED KINGDOM, FRANCE, USA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 97 mn
- Director(s)
- Florian ZELLER
- Cast
- Anthony HOPKINS, Olivia COLMAN, Mark GATISS
- Producer(s)
- David PARFITT
- Synopsis
- Anne visits her father Anthony in his flat after he has driven away the latest of several caregivers. He has dementia and constantly forgets important life events and where things are around his flat, including his watch. He tells Anne he believes his caregiver stole his watch and that he will never move out of his flat. She tells Anthony she is moving to Paris to be with a man, which confuses Anthony since he does not recall any men in her life since the end of her marriage to James. Anne says that if he keeps refusing to have a caregiver, she will have to move him into a nursing home.
  
  The next day, Anthony encounters an unknown man, Paul, in his flat. Paul says he is Anne's husband and that Anthony is living in their flat. Anne returns but appears to Anthony as a different woman. When a new caregiver, Laura, arrives for an interview, Anthony tells Laura he was a professional dancer and insists he does not need any assistance. Anthony later says Laura reminds him of his other daughter Lucy, whom he has not seen for a long time.
  
  Anthony is taken to a doctor and rejects the idea that he has memory problems. Later, he tells Laura how proud he is of Lucy, a painter. She tells him she is sorry about Lucy's accident, but Anthony is confused as he has no recollection of that. Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that Anthony has really been living with Anne for years, but believes he still lives in his own flat. After Anne comes home, she and her husband – who is sometimes called Paul and sometimes James, and appears as two different men – have an argument over a holiday that had to be cancelled because of Anthony's needs, and about Anne's sacrifices for her father. Paul asks Anthony how long he plans to stay in their flat and annoy everyone; this sequence of events is repeated later, and on the second occasion Paul slaps him.
  
  Anthony wakes up and walks out of the flat, finding himself in a hospital hallway. He remembers Lucy lying in a hospital bed with blood on her face. He then wakes up in a completely different bedroom, which is in a nursing home. His nurse arrives, who earlier appeared as both Anne and Laura, but identifies herself as Catherine. She informs him Anne has moved to Paris and visits on occasional weekends. Another nurse named Bill also visits, identical to one of the men who earlier appeared to be Anne's husband. Anthony breaks down in tears over his inability to understand what is happening to him, as well as Anne's disappearance. He says he wants his mother and that he is "losing his leaves, the branches, the wind and the rain". Catherine comforts him and tells him she will take him out to the park later.

THE FATHER

Festivals& Awards

Festivals
& Awards