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FLICKS- When Did You Last See Your Father For a man to realize his love for his father after the latter’s death is to find a kind of redemption in the longing for what can no longer be. by Chris Dashiell- The Film Snob When Did You Last See Your Father? This open-ended question is the title of a new English film exploring a troubled father-son relationship in the light of the father's imminent death from cancer. Colin Firth plays the son, Blake, a happily married and well-regarded poet who returns to his parents' home to help take care of the old man as he's dying. The film is carefully interwoven with flashbacks from Blake's childhood and youth. The father, Arthur, played by the wonderful veteran actor Jim Broadbent, is a doctor and a genial man of the world who uses charm and presumption to get what he wants. This extroverted character is a total contrast with his sensitive and introspective son, and the story revolves around the painful lack of connection between them.
Broadbent inhabits his role with gusto, combining a sort of easy-going foolishness with an unexpectedly thoughtful side. Juliet Stevenson is on hand as the mother, self-assured with a touch of vulnerability. There are several plot strands, including the young Blake's dalliance with the family house maid and, notably, the suspicion that the old man is having an affair with his wife's sister, which poisons Blake's regard for him. The acting is generally smooth, but the real discovery here is a relative unknown named Matthew Beard, who plays the teenage Blake with just the right notes of sullen resentment and confusion.
David Nicholls adapted Blake Morrison's autobiographical novel. The director is Anand Tucker, whose previous credits include the beautiful 1998 film Hilary and Jackie. Tucker's style is more conventional here—there's little surprise in the regular shifting between past and present and the over-insistent use of music. The father-and-son theme is played upon without going very deep, yet I defy anyone to remain unmoved by the film's penultimate scene, in which a tentative good-bye from the past is laced with present regret using a swirling camera. For a man to realize his love for his father after the latter's death is to find a kind of redemption in the longing for what can no longer be, and it is this sad and lonely truth that the film succeeds in conveying with power.