Susan Granger’s review of “When Did You Last See Your Father” (Sony Pictures Classics)
“When did you last see your father? Was it last weekend or last Christmas? Was it before or after he exhaled his last breath? And was it him, or was it a version of him, shaped by your own expectations and disappointments?” questions dour British poet Blake Morrison (Colin Firth), coming to terms with the life and death of his own father.
The man in question is Arthur Morrison (Jim Broadbent), a brooding, boorish country doctor, who bullies others to get his way, particularly his ever-patient wife, Kim (Juliet Stevenson), who smokes cigarettes and frequently seeks solitude, suffering from migraine headaches.
Adapted by David Nicholls (“Starter for 10”) from Blake Morrison’s 1993 confessional – and obviously therapeutic – memoir and directed by Anand Tucker (“Shopgirl,” “Hilary and Jackie”), it delves into how the loss of a parent can create in grown children confusing waves of unbridled emotion: blame, resentment, remorse, fear and pride. And it’s just as episodic, fragmentary and repetitive as those emotional moments tend to be, flashing back to Blake’s childhood memories. There’s the time Blake was humiliated by his father in front of the opposite sex, a look at his father’s suspiciously close relationship with “aunt” Beaty (Sarah Lancashire) and his father’s bout with terminal cancer.
Over the past few years, Colin Firth seems to have inherited Hugh Grant’s mantle as America’s Englishman but, this time, he’s mostly morose, except with his wife, Kathy (Gina McKee). On the other hand, Jim Broadbent can do no wrong and Matthew Beard is pitch-perfect as the teenage Blake. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “When Did You Last See Your Father?” is an unfocused, sensitive 6. It’s an agonized tear-jerker about loss and mourning.
