Death is a popular subject for the movies. Having to say a final goodbye to a loved one is a common occurrence in the human experience and many directors have attempted to tap into these mutual feelings with films. Sadly, the subject has become overused and these sad moments now have a tendency to become cliché and dry.

When Did You Last See Your Father? is different. Based on the bestselling memoir by Blake Morrison, the film details a son’s attempt to answer the title’s question, but not in the literal sense. Blake attempts to track down the time he last saw his father for who he really was and he can only find this answer after peeling back a thick curtain of anger and resentment.

Blake and Artur

Blake Morrison is a struggling middle-aged poet who has always had a love-hate relationship with his father, Arthur. Blake is an artist; Arthur is a doctor. Now faced with his father’s mounting terminal illness and imminent death, Blake is forced to evaluate their relationship from the start. He takes a few days and travels to his parent’s country home as the family waits for the death of a patriarch.

In the face of this, Blake remembers his relationship with Arthur. Memories are awakened around every corner of the house – humorous moments, embarrassing ones, the times he hated his father and the times he loved him unabashedly. This relationship is shown completely from Blake’s perspective. The evolution of a flawed father-son relationship and the son’s attempt to obtain emotional resolution makes for a shattering piece of cinema that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

When Did You Last See Your Father? often feels like a lyrical tone poem, but it is much more than that. Some may find the stylistic choices confusing, but it must be noted that the film is telling a story of the past and the present in a way that mirrors actual thought processes. The acting is so tremendous in places that we can almost see the memory forming on the face of a character before the film transitions to the actual event. This results in an ever-present stream-of-consciousness tone which transitions beautifully (sometimes unexpectedly) out of the present and into the past. It transcends the clichés usually found in films about death.

The conflicted son

Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth hold the narrative together as the father and son; neither of them leave the story wanting at any point. Jim Broadbent again proves himself to be one of the most talented British character actors working today. His versatility is astounding here just as in films like Longford and Nicholas Nickleby.

In the first moments of the film, Firth’s narration talks about how his father always felt a need to break some kind of rule to get where he needed to be. This is most assuredly Broadbent’s motivation as an actor throughout the film and is his character’s joy and downfall. These rule-breaking habits also make an impression on his family, namely Blake.

At one point, Blake tells a friend how he thinks his father has never read an entire book. As a teen boy who spends his free time reading Dostoyevsky, this habit bothers Blake to no end. Later in life, Blake will become a prize-winning poet, but his endeavors were never aided or encouraged by his father who wanted him to study “real subjects” like math and science. Firth plays the part of Blake gracefully throughout, but never better than in a moment when his character finds himself falling into some of the same habits that made him hate his father at times. The old adage about “the sins of the father” tends to prove true no matter how much the memory tries to block it out … and for Blake, there are moments when this fate feels inescapable.

Blake has some bad memories of his father – a lot, actually – but the few good memories are sometimes enough to make the bad ones seem forgettable. After a father-son camping trip leaves the two of them cold both physically and emotionally, Arthur drives them to the beach and gets out of the car, telling his son to move over. This will be Blake’s first driving lesson, and as the two zoom down the beautiful beach enjoying each other’s company deeply and fully, the emotional pull is undeniable.

Driving lessons

When Did You Last See Your Father? has the singular ability to make a viewer recall feelings and emotions akin to what is on screen. This is an inescapable and unexplainable sensation of which director Anand Tucker should be very proud. Even more complex is how the film can evoke such strong feelings without ever being sentimental, saccharine, or melodramatic. The way in which Tucker shows Blake’s memories of his father is sometimes so bittersweet that one cannot help but cry; at other times it’s enough to evoke anger beyond words.

The relationship between a father and his son is different for everyone. Some may watch this film and be repulsed while others will walk away from it happier than they have ever been. A person’s reaction to this film will rely solely on the extent to which they can empathize with the characters. Indeed, it is hard for me to write critically about a film that wielded such great emotional power over me.

With my critic’s cap on, I might say that the photography was too fancy, the music too beautiful, or the script too sparse, but I’d by lying on all counts because all these came together to form something that moved me deeply – something so simple and beautiful (and so different) that it awakened memories of the joy and pain of living more than any film I’ve seen this year.