And When Did You Last See Your Father?

Director: Anand Tucker

Starring: Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson

There are always films which remind you of your own life experiences when you watch them. And when did you last see your father is exactly one of this kind. Based on Blake Morrison’s touching memoir of his father weeks before the latter’s death, the film embarks on an evocative journey of exploring the puzzles in the father-son relationship, the puzzles that have somewhat happened to all of us in our youth, the puzzles that once could be unspeakably painful.

The story of the film begins with a diagnosis of terminal cancer which leaves Blake Morrison’s father, Arthur Morrison, only weeks to live. Standing at his father’s bedside in the old house where he spent his childhood and adolescence, Blake is forced to face the awakening memories of his relationship with his father and to resolve the complexity of such a relationship into which the contradictions, frustrations, love and loss are bound.

Arthur Morrison has always been such an exuberant but tactless father by whom adolescent Blake occasionally gets embarrassed, annoyed or even hurt. However, what causes real devastation to the father-son relationship is the affair Arthur has for years with Aunt Beaty. Blake’s entire youth sees his suffering from the agony that is brought about by the loathing of his father and the compassion for his mother.

The flashbacks, interspersed with the scenes in the present, are flowing in front of your eyes with such a delicately slow tempo that you almost need to hold your breath to watch them. Yet, the tangled emotions are struggling intensely underneath and seem to have the potential of breaking the gentleness the film puts on as a mask at any point. Such a point finally comes at the end of the film when Arthur has died, and Blake, after weeks of confronting his past, eventually comes to make peace with his father and himself. Standing in the twilight garden of his old family house, Blake is imagining holding his father and saying goodbye. It is in tears of love, understanding and gratitude that he sees his father for the very last time in his life.

Yawen Yang