The Father (2021) - I Want My Mommy!

 

★★★★☆

The Buddha said, there're four kinds of inevitable pain in life: the pain of birth; of aging; of sickening and of dying! We sentient beings are too deluded and ignorant to realize that birth is the root of all problems. If you don't want death, you gotta avoid birth. Birth and death are like two sides of a coin. You can't just get one without the other! So are aging and sickening! 'The Father' is a film about the pain and poignancy of getting old and sick, and more pathetically, being left alone and trapped in one's own confusing memories! It reminds me of films such as 'Amour' and 'A Simple Life' made to let us face the cruel aspect of the circle of life, especially the final stage where you literally become like a helpless baby!

Watching 'The Father' is quite an intriguing experience indeed due to its ingenious storytelling where the beginning is already the end, and the end is actually the beginning. Of course there's no way you could've realized so since it opens like a perfectly normal drama. But as it keeps playing out, it becomes weirder and weirder like a ghost story. Soon enough you'd know it is not. It's the father's Alzheimer's. The film sets you up in an Alzheimer's patient's mind to allow you to see what he sees. It's fairly immersive and melancholy as a result. Anthony Hopkins has pulled off the real best performance here in years as he's been wasted to star or cameo in so many lousy films and dramas I guess. The supportive cast are also the reason why this 'spooky' yet heart-wrenching show is so much of a success. 'The Father' is going to grab an award or two in this year's Academy for sure.

We come and grow and die all alone, no matter how many friends or relatives or children we have by our side when dying! We come to this world naked and empty-handed. We go off naked and empty-handed as well. We need someone to help wipe our ass when we're just a baby. We need some help to wipe our ass when we're getting very old and clumsy too! Whether we would be very, very blessed to have a very, very good soul there to help is another story! Sometimes I feel like crying, knowing that my mother's turning from an adult to a baby bit by bit as she's getting older and older, and there's nothing I can do to change it at all. Sad but true that I myself am a victim of this painful cycle of birth and death! I'll probably be weak and anxious too, crying out like Anthony in the end of the film, 'I feel as if I'm losing all my leaves... I want my mommy!'