The Father - 6 nominations

 

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Anthony Hopkins

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Olivia Colman

Best Adapted Screenplay - Christopher Hampton (screenplay by), Florian Zeller (screenplay by)

Best Achievement in Film Editing - Yorgos Lamprinos

Best Achievement in Production Design - Peter Francis (production design), Cathy Featherstone (set decoration)

Best Motion Picture of the Year - David Parfitt (producer), Jean-Louis Livi (producer),  Philippe Carcassonne (producer)

As my husband always reminds me, the Oscars is not the playground of comedic films, and especially not the Best Picture category.  The Father is a brilliant film about a man experiencing middle to advanced dementia, and the burden that places on his daughter, trying (but not always knowing how) to do the right thing for his care.  Much of the film is one scene lived through the father's experience - with different actors playing different roles representing how a person with dementia might remember someone one day and not recognize that person the next day; with a timeline that seems to repeat itself and scenes that don't follow a linear path, with the same confusion that the father experiences day in and day out.  While there have been plenty of Oscar nominated films about the experience of Alzheimer's or dementia (Still Alice, Away From Her, The Savages, Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me) none gives the first-person experience of what it feels like until The Father.

The film is intended to be confusing, and truly the editing is the star of this movie - though Oscar winners Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman remind us with every word and every expression why these two actors are truly giants.  The only nomination I found truly confusing was the production design which worked, but was not truly special - no matter, this award mostly goes to period pieces and I can't really see this film nabbing the gold.

Unlike most of the Best Picture nominees,  I can't say that this film is for everyone.  Dementia touches people's lives differently and for some, this film will just be too hard to watch.  It is a highly original take and it feels true.  I don't know enough about the disease to know how accurately it is portrayed, but it is certainly the first time I can recall that a film tackles the subject from the inside - we aren't watching what happens to someone living with dementia, we are living it with him.  It's a powerful film.

Watch the trailer here.