Review of And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007) by Lorenzo V — 05 Dec 2008

"A parent and a child. The past and the present. Memories and secrets. Can you know someone for a lifetime.... and not know them at all? The life of a father. Through the journey of a son.".

As poet Blake Morrison (Colin Firth) visits his dying father (Jim Broadbent), he remembers the feeling of being overshadowed by his gregarious dad. Blake's conflicted memories roam back and forth through the 1950s, the '60s and then the late '80s , the last in which Blake is a married man with a career of his own.

Review.

Blake Morrison's memories are served for public consumption in a respectful but slightly confused rendition. Jim Broadbent delight us, once more, with his overgrown child of a father that seems a figment of her son's imagination. His childishness seems to be his only flaw. I couldn't help but being reminded of Tim Burton's "Big Fish" this time, with radically different flights of fancy. Colin Firth plays the writer/son as a crashing bore. Was that on purpose? I've been longing to see Firth again in parts like the ones he so amazingly captured - "Apartment Zero" comes to mind. Here earnest or not earnest, loving, selfish and so forth I didn't quite get myself interested enough to care as much as I feel I should have. Matthew Beard, the younger Blake and Juliet Stevens as the mother, manage to create more intriguing characters. The film, however, belongs to Jim Broadbent - His character is a loving mix of assorted British loving eccentrics. The fact that this is the way her son Blakes remembers him, makes the experience worth while.