When did you last see a bad movie?
Added 7/5/2009
My wife and I rented this movie because we like Colin Firth's comedy. Well, not only is this no comedy, but it's actually pointlessly depressing. The film focuses on the life of a son who is affected and overpowered by his father's personality and extramarital affairs. He never had the opportunity to confront his father about their relationship, creating an unresolved tension in his life. This is a common issue in real life relationships today, yet there are actually not a whole lot of movies about father-son relationships. However, the characters in "When Did You Last See Your Father?" are pretty shallow and rote.
On top of all of that, the British accents were very difficult to understand, and there is no option for English-language subtitles. As Churchill noted, the Americans and Brits are two people divided by a common language.
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Worth seeing for Broadbent
Added 2/8/2009
Jim Broadbent is one of our greatest living actors and he is incapable of giving a bad performance. This is a difficult role for him, since the character he plays is radically flawed and not particularly likeable. The story concerns his son's attempts to reconnect with him as he approaches death. It is told in flashbacks and it is touching in moments and beautifully filmed throughout. The problem is that it lacks a clear structure, a plot arc that successfully shapes the action and effects an emotional and intellectual response. With such an arc, each scene advances the action and multiplies its impact. Here the story meanders and the emotional interplay of the characters fails to reach a satisfactory, layered conclusion. As some of the Amazon reviewers have noted, the film will not lack an audience because many would watch Colin Firth reading the phone book. I don't think one should miss any performance by Broadbent, but to see him at the absolute top of his form, see Topsy-Turvy. Firth is an actor with more range than some give him credit for; see him in the very interesting film, The Advocate.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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British drama about fatehr son relationship
Added 1/18/2009
Very touching film about complex father son relationship. When father is diagnosed with cancer, his son goes through a flashback of the events from his early adolescence that explains the strained relationship between father and son. Father had a greater than life personality, while son was more introverted and emotional. Long time ago indiscretions commited by the father seem irreconcilable to the son. His attempt to get answers is impeded by the terrible sickness that seems to take over the situation.
It is a touching story about parent child relationship. It is also a story about grief and the fact that sometimes we would rather have our parents around so we can hate them then loose them to death and life long sorrow for not being able to have them around ourselves except in our memories.
Wonderful cast of very fine British actors. Fantastic story about one very special father one would love to have around no matter what.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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I Never Sang for My Father (redux)
Added 12/17/2008
Colin Furth and Jim Broadbent are wonderful actors. This movie is painful as relations between child and parents frequently are. Question is whether the good times outweigh the bad. Blake's father was abusive. Not physically but verbally and that can be almost as bad. I think he was more forgiving of his father at the end than I would have been.
While watching this film I was reminded of a film from the seventies with Gene Hackman and Melvyn Douglas which was based on a stage play of the same name, "I Never Sang for My Father," about a son coming to care for his miserable, abusive elderly father whose wife had just died. Another heartbreaking film about sons and fathers and the responsibilities of children to their sometimes abusive parents.
Both pictures leave food for thought.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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and when did you last see your father?
Added 12/17/2008
Excellent drama. All three men actors should shear a prize for the acting.
MY NAME IS NOT EDUARDO BUT SUSANA ROTTENBERG
0 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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This is about as perfect a lttle film as I have ever seen. Took me a month to get thru it; had to keep stopping it. Sort of a Terms of Endearment...the Jewish version. It punched like 16 holes in my chest, it just keeps blind siding you. Get the kleenex ready.
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Life is Complicated
Added 8/16/2009
This was an absorbing movie, and drew tears toward its conclusion. The best word to describe the movie and its point of view is "complicated." People do the wrong things for the right reasons, or the right things for wrong reasons and so on.
In brief, Helen Hunt directs and stars in the only DVD I know of that explores the deep emotions of a woman who wants a child while her mind and heart are complicated by three different abandonments: she was given away by her birth mother (Bette Midler) and is adopted; her new husband (Matthew Broderick) leaves her after a very short period; and she loses her first baby, all while driving away a serious (complicated) man (Colin Firth).
Make-up is to be praised, I have never seen Helen Hunt look so drawn and aged and "wanting."
The actors are all great, with Hunt and Firth being the featured actors and Broderick (the perfect Jewish mama's boy) and Middler being supporting actors.
An excellent,thoughtful, complicated story told very very well.
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Then she found me.
Added 8/9/2009
Was watching TV and ran into this movie. Couldn't watch the rest of it and by chance I just looked it up on Amazon. Like always I wasn't let down, they had it and it was so affordable I just ordered it and got to finish watching it. Wasn't the best but I enjoyed it....
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