Anthony Hopkins Will Break Your Heart In 'The Father' [Sundance Review]

PARK CITY – We may have all forgotten just how talented Anthony Hopkins is. And considering he’s “Anthony Hopkins” that’s sort of insane. The legendary actor may have earned the fifth Oscar nomination of his career earlier this month for his role as Pope Benedict in “The Two Popes” but he’s already topped himself for his best work this century (yes, century) with his next picture, Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival earlier this week.

Hopkins delivers an emotional firestorm of a performance as Anthony, a man battling the onset of dementia. Hopkins is so good here we’re confident in suggesting his version of Anthony is likely to become the idealized portrayal of the character, a character that has been portrayed by actors well known and not so well known in stage productions of Zeller’s play all across the world (Frank Langella won a Tony Award playing him in 2016). And despite the efforts of Hopkins and an outstanding ensemble, Zeller can’t divorce his feature directorial debut from its theatrical origins.

Granted, perhaps the direction Zeller stuck with was a reflex from the first big-screen adaptation of his play, 2014’s “Floride.” That French-language film, directed by Philippe Le Guay, changed everything it could to take the play out of the confines of its apartment setting and place the characters out into the physical world. Zeller has, well, other ideas.

This incarnation of “The Father” initially appears to be a familiar story. A middle-aged adult – in this case, Anne (Olivia Colman) – is having difficulty attempting to assist a much older parent in their later years. Anthony, the tempestuous adult in question, lives alone in a London flat he insists he’s owned for over 30 years. At first glance, he doesn’t seem that mentally or physically impaired, but it’s clear that during Anne’s initial visit she’s trying to contain her frustration. Her father has scared off yet another part-time care worker and she’s at her wits end on how to find a new candidate. Anthony will hear nothing of her complaints about his behavior insisting the care worker stole his watch and he’s fine on his own. Before Anne leaves she has to remind him that they have to come to a solution soon. She’s found someone new in her life and is going to move to Paris to be with him. This is “news” to Anthony who isn’t exactly sure how to respond to it or whether it’s the truth.

After she leaves the building he wanders a bit in his kitchen. When he returns to the living room he finds a man he doesn’t recognize (Mark Gatiss) sitting in a chair reading the paper. This man says he is Paul, Anne’s husband, and from the tone of his voice, he doesn’t comprehend why Anthony doesn’t know him. Anthony argues with Paul insisting that Anne hasn’t been married for years and informing him about her upcoming move to Paris. Confused, Paul calls Anne on his phone who says she’s returning from the grocery store and will be there any minute. When Anne opens the door Anthony goes to the foyer to greet her, but it’s not “his” Anne. Well, she says she is, but this Anne is a completely different woman. A woman who cares for Anthony like Anne, but is played by Olivia Williams.

(And, yes, we’ll give Zeller credit for this wink-wink casting as moviegoers, TV viewers and the media have confused the two Olivias for almost twenty years. Well, at least until Colman won that Oscar.)

If you haven’t seen the play, it may not be clear what entirely is going on. Especially when Rufus Sewell arrives later, also insisting he’s Paul. This Paul, however, is the current husband of Olivia Colman’s Anne. Making matters even more confusing for Anthony is the arrival of Laua (Imogen Poots), a new caregiver who he keeps remarking looks similar to his other daughter, Susan. But is she the caregiver he scared off beforehand or is she that nurse’s replacement? What is real and what isn’t? And when are these conversations happening? It’s a fun cat and mouse game for a minute but isn’t meant to establish anything more than the personal horror of onset dementia from Anthony’s perspective. And that brings us back to Hopkins and his co-stars.

Zeller’s adaptation of his own play might have worked well on the stage, but it simply goes in a few too many circles for what clocks in as a 97-minute film. Moreover, Anthony’s eventual fate seems telegraphed from the first encounter with his daughter. There is little tension in terms of what will happen to him. Instead, what keeps your attention are the incredibly subtle performances from Williams, Poots, Sewell and, most notably, Colman who can imply more with a slight tilt of the head or partial smile than 99% of her peers. Colman’s work here may be yet another example of how she has hit a career-best stride, but Hopkins is simply on another level. When Anthony recognizes he cannot comprehend what is happening, he starts to breakdown and Hopkins rips out perhaps the rawest emotions he’s ever displayed on screen. It’s literally a punch to the gut that only the coldest of hearts won’t be affected by. But is it enough?

Zeller clearly can work with actors, but his insistence on chronicling the story in effectively one space (there is one scene in a doctor’s office) makes this endeavor more claustrophobic than it should be. At times the picture felt awfully familiar to Roman Polanski’s 2011 film adaption of another play, “Carnage.” That was an example of a relatively short film (1 hour and 20 minutes) that wore out its welcome quickly because it stuck so closely to its source material (“The Father” is 97 minutes). Zeller and production designer Peter Francis clearly believe their design and floor plan for the flat helps break down some of those conventions (much taller ceilings, for instance), but when you start to think to yourself “geez, this feels like a play” that probably means it, well, feels like a play.

The pain Hopkins and Colman carry in their characters can do wonders, however. And this is a universal story that has plagued thousands of generations and will haunt thousands more. The refrain of “Don’t put me in a home” that twentysomethings begin to hear at the first signs of adulthood will eventually flip and become their pleading wish to their own offspring. And you cannot discount the universal truths Zeller’s tome chronicles, no matter what language it’s experienced in. You just wish that for this cinematic incarnation he was more comfortable breaking down so many of the walls he built into the story oh so many years ago. [B]

Sony Classics acquired “The Father” before the Sundance Film Fesival and plan to release it in theaters later this year.

Follow along for all of our coverage from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival here.