Patricia Poole

At once both disturbingly and bitingly accurate, and reassuring and soothing, The Father is the portrayal of a collection of snapshots of the lives of Anthony, and his daughter Anne as Anthony struggles to cope with his failing memory and perceptions. That’s all. But Anthony’s predicament is portrayed with such empathy and accuracy, ie things are what they are and he must find his place within the changing world of sadly, later life dementia. We don’t know if Anthony’s successful in this, if he manages to reconcile his demons, his unhappy memories, with - well, with existence. In the end I think that’s all that any of us can do, and aspire to, within whatever circumstances we find ourselves. A well deserved 10 from me.

I really wanted to like this movie, I loved the storyline and well, Spike Lee etc etc, but I found it very slow, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of time spent on every little plot device or scene; they were dragged out too much for me which spoilt it. My hb thought that the tone was wrong, not sure a movie centred around infiltrating the KKK should be any kind of a comedy. I think I agree with him, I would have much preferred to watch it as a straight drama, with a bit of a more fast moving pace OR a sort of docudrama .... I’m going to have another go at it, I think, before damning it completely. I do get why Lee chose to use the vehicle of comedy, in that he saw the whole premise of the thing as absurd, I just don’t think it works on this occasion.