When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)

Pretty Good

Overrated and overhyped

Memorable, crazy movie

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Sometimes a film can have a great cast attached, a good script and a good director and still come up short. For a good example of that see this film.It's not bad by any means, it just doesn't achieve it's potential. I thought Colin Firth did well, ditto Jim Broadbent, but there is too slow a pace, and too much wasted dialogue for this film to do a lot for me sadly.It's a shame because it should have been great

One of the better movies of the last couple years, "When Did you Last See Your Father" is an engrossing look at a Father/Son relationship with superb narration from Colin Firth who also stars in the movie. At times the pacing slows, but the filmmakers more than make up for it with a grand-slam ending 10-12 min or so, (spoiler) where we the audience can feel the protagonists confusion melt away into clarity of bereavement and grieving. For me, some decent movies out there like this one get lifted up by truly great or cathartic scenes. Ones which open a flood-gate of empathy. Mathew Beard and Jim Broadbent also are quite good. Recommended Drama.

At its simplest this movie is about the love between two men - a father and son - that in spite of a deep desire to connect, cannot be shared between the two. At least not in life. And not until it is too late. Sadly, it is a story that is all too prevalent in our society.The film reflects this theme again and again with flashbacks of the son's experiences growing up with the father. Of course this is the son's world view and the film does not cover the father's perspective of events. So the question remains unanswered - was there truly no point of contact for the love between the two, or was the son blind to, or incapable of, receiving the love of the father?Well worth the investment of 92 minutes of your time.

_And When Did You Last See Your Father_ is mainly a story about a son's feelings toward his father, supposedly a true story. Stripping away all the extraneous plot elements, the big question for the son becomes the cheating issue. When his father dies, he confronts one of the women with whom the father might have had a continuing affair, asking if their relationship became physical. She says that that question needs to remain unanswered out of respect for the deceased and herself. Colin Firth, playing the son, acts as if this is an impossible situation for him, not knowing. Dr. Phil would tell him to stop whining and get on with his life. This movie, in my opinion, is just a write-up of the whine so as to cash in on its commercial value. I don't think director Mike Leigh would have accepted any amount of money to dignify that story line with a movie, but if he had done so, he would have given us a movie far, far better than this one. -- Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego