family drama directed
by : Anand Tucker featuring
: Jim Broadbent - Colin Firth - Juliet Stevenson - Gina McKee - Claire
Skinner running
time : 1 hour 33 minutes
Adapted from poet
Blake Morrison's bestselling memoir by screenwriter David Nicholls and
directed for the screen by Anand Tucker, And When Did You Last See Your
Father explores - like its source material - the complex, manifold emotional
layers of a father-and-son relationship as it shifts and evolves over the
passing decades. At the film's center is Blake Morrison himself, who for
as long as he can remember has lived in the overarching shadow of his physician
father Arthur (Jim Broadbent) - falling prey to feelings of embarrassment
from the old man, as well as occasional awe. In the 1950s, when Blake (Bradley
Johnson) was a child, the boy watched as Arthur partook in socially uncouth
behavior such as wheedling his way into clubs to which he didn't belong,
and carrying on an extramarital affair with the full knowledge of his wife,
Kim (Juliet Stevenson). As the years passed, teenage Blake's (Matthew Beard)
discomfort around his father hardened into resentment - particularly when
the adolescent boy expressed interest in a girl, Rachel (Carey Mulligan)
who clearly preferred his father; compounding the situation, Blake then
had to suffer through Arthur's decision to publicly humiliate his son in
front of everyone. The central dynamic has changed for the two, however,
by the late 1980s, when Blake - now married to Kathy (Gina McKee) and freshly
established as a successful novelist and poet - learns that Arthur has
contracted terminal cancer. Now, the junior Morrison takes a headfirst
plunge into the memories and recollections of his youth - and grapples
with the dynamic of his relationship with Arthur for the first time in
his life as he comes face-to-face with the need to provide loving care
for the old man.
