Meu Pai, Meu Filho

"A Loving Father" tells of a writer who is en route to pick up his Nobel prize when his trip is interrupted by an estranged son. This road trip flick focuses on the real life father/son Depardieu duo as it meanders through a spotty mire of family dysfunction issues. The sometimes engaging story is fraught with moments of implausibility, a seemingly concocted conclusion, and a trite moral which seems to be "Love your children because payback's a bitch". With good quality in all aspects except story, "A Loving Father" has been largely ignored by the critics and received only a few fringe awards with nominal plaudits from the public. Only for fans of the players or French cinema. (B-)

This piece can hardly be regarded as movie: some aspects suggests it is intended to be one (actors, story, materials used etc.), but actually it is self-therapy effort for director Jacob Berger, whose father was John Berger well known English writer. It seems that the father figure (or at lest his artistic success) suppressed the talent of his son, and he wanted to release himself from this pressure by talking about it. But alas he used movie as a medium instead of visiting a psychiatrist: his problem remains personal, we can not relate to it. As a movie it is very poor, full of improbabilities, primitive psychology, and one-dimensional characters. I do not think anyone can profit from seeing this movie. One from twenty-five stars.

This movie is an extremely gripping story of family relations involving a famous father. Both Depardieus are wonderful but I was blown away by the performance of Sylvie Testud. She riveted me every moment that she was on the screen. The story focuses on Leo Shepherd (Gérard Depardieu)a famous writer on the verge of winning a Nobel prize and examines what life is like for those in the family where the father is the focus of international attention and adoration. Other family members are left to identify themselves relative to the father. While the focus of the film is on a famous father, the power children give their parents makes many of this film's story lines relevant to all.

There were some amazing performances in this movie, as, at times, it delved into interesting material about parenting and relationships with neglectful parents. However, each time when the characters started to dig deeper within themselves to reveal more, the movie interrupted the focus--often into rather irrelevant directions. This is probably because most people with emotional baggage attempt to confront the past but become scared and run from it. Despite this, I still wanted to see much more exploration between the father and son. In addition, I wanted to see more than just a one-dimensional performance by the daughter throughout all but the closing moments of the film (she always seemed intensely and disproportionately angry throughout the film). It was as if the movie was put into production before there was a chance to edit and do re-writes and smooth out all the details--especially the very end of the film that made very little sense. Overall, it's interesting and has moments but could have been better.

By the way, Gerard's real life son plays his son in the movie. He looked an awful lot like a French version of Julian Sands (the somewhat obscure English actor).

A Loving Father is a difficult movie to watch for obvious reasons. While in most of their movies together, father and son Gérard and Guillaume Depardieu play older and younger versions of each other, in this movie they play a father and son with a bad relationship. At the time of its release, it might have been worth it to see good acting and hope the characters onscreen, a successful father and a son who can't measure up, could help them reconcile their relationship offscreen. Now, it's very sad to watch, if you're able to get through it. It just hits a little too close to home, as hurt and frustration radiates off both of them constantly.

Gérard is a Nobel Prize recipient who gets involved in a motorcycle accident while on the way to Stockholm. His estranged son discovers the accident and, after calling the French equivalent of 911, tucks his dad into his car and drives away. They hear on the radio that Gérard's wallet was discovered and he's presumed dead, and Guillaume takes advantage of the opportunity to have a father-son chat and hopefully fix their issues.

See what I mean about not being able to get through the movie? If you were able to watch Whitney Houston in Sparkle, I guess you'll be able to watch the Depardieus in A Loving Father. Just keep in mind that it's very sad. There are some other scenes with Sylvie Testud, Gérard's daughter, who has her own anger issues about her brother and her father, so you will have a break from time to time. If you don't even know what I'm talking about, then you'll be fine and you'll see some very good acting.