Blake Morrison (Colin Firth) wryly notes in "When Did You Last See Your Father?” that if you put two men in a room long enough, they'll kill each other. Throughout this touching and refreshingly unsentimental look at father-and-son friction, that impulse lies just below the surface as Blake endures the taunts of his overbearing dad.
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Based on Morrison's memoir, the film chronicles the lifelong conflict between Blake and his dad, Arthur (Jim Broadbent), a man full of opinions and low on tact who continually bruised his son's ego. Arthur is hardly an evil man, but his life is built on petty lies and a bad habit of trying to look taller by stepping on Blake.
Those around him see Arthur as a colorful character with an endless supply of amusing anecdotes and witticisms. Blake sees him as the man who continually called him "fathead.”
Director Anand Tucker ("Shopgirl,” "Hilary and Jackie”) begins "When Did You Last See Your Father?” with Arthur's cancer diagnosis and the efforts by his wife, Kim (Juliet Stevenson), to maintain his comfort during Arthur's final days.
But the end of Arthur's life stirs mainly hostile memories in Blake, and Tucker recounts Blake's upbringing in seamlessly deployed flashbacks.
We see how Arthur undermined the teenage Blake (Matthew Beard) in front of girls, including the family's teenage housekeeper Sandra (Elaine Cassidy), Blake's first love, and continued an unsubtle affair with family friend Beaty (Sarah Lancashire). As Arthur's health wanes, Blake confronts the past and tries to reconcile his complicated feelings for a man who lived mostly for himself.
"Father” could have devolved into a saccharine, Mitch Albom-style dissertation on cherishing final moments, and Blake ultimately does find an uneasy peace with his father, but Tucker chooses to highlight the rough road to Blake's final understanding. Broadbent is characteristically superb here, and Firth traverses some rough territory as a middle-age man looking backward at adolescence.
Those performances, along with Beard's excellent work as Blake at his most awkward and earnest, make "When Did You Last See Your Father?” an uncommon look at life with a difficult man.
— George Lang
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