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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 4 October 2007

Father figures all set to go through roof
at box office

AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?
Directed by Anand Tucker
Certificate 12a

LIKE father, like son? No way, in this searing, heart-wrenching story of the love-hate relationship between writer Blake Morrison and his dad Arthur, a rumbustious country GP in the Yorkshire Dales.
Based on Blake’s best-selling 1993 account of their lives, the film charts the embarrassment and eventual bitterness of the young teenager (Matthew Beard) unable to communicate with the man he feels is “a mean-spirited, sanctimonious old sod”.
In fact, his father (a brilliant performance from Jim Broadbent) is full of genuine love for his family – but he just can’t see how irritating his boisterous over-exuberance is to all around him.
Only on his deathbed from lingering cancer does his son, now a successful novelist (sensitively played by Colin Firth), come to realise how different their lives could have been with more understanding and tolerance on both sides.
The acting all round is faultless – from Juliet Stevenson as Arthur’s long-suffering wife, to Gina McKee, Sarah Lancashire and Claire Skinner in key supporting family roles.
Arthur himself is no angel. He stoops to minor deceptions, such as waving his stethoscope out of the window to bypass a massive traffic jam and bluff his way into Goodwood racecourse, and indulges with mischievous flirtation with the young girl his son has fallen for.
Stand by for a shoal of awards for a film that’s a must for discerning audiences.
Whether it will cross the Atlantic to make its mark in the US is another matter.

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