The Father

After his previous carer leaves the daughter of an octogenarian, Anthony, organises a new carer for him. However, to Anthony everything is confusion: faces change, one day his daughter Anne is moving to Paris, the next day she's not, is this his flat or not? And why doesn't his other daughter visit him anymore?

Brilliant. An absorbing, sensitive-yet-jarring look into what a person living with dementia or similar must go through plus what those that love them and care for them must experience. Told in a very intriguing and compelling manner: nothing is signposted, everything unfolds in a layered altered-reality fashion, making you figure things out for yourself.

Quite haunting and thought-provoking, as that could be you one day, or someone you love. Incredibly emotional too as you think about this affects his loved ones, the life he's lived and that this is what it now amounts to.

Incredible performance by Anthony Hopkins in the lead role. While the plot and direction are fantastic the film needed an excellent performance as Anthony and that's what Hopkins does, absolutely nailing it. He well deserved his Best Actor Oscar.

Great supporting cast: Olivia Colman (who got a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her efforts), Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams, Imogen Poots and Mark Gatiss.

The Father couldn't be more realistic when talking about Alzheimer's disease. I've seen my grandfather walking that path. He was a smart man but once the dementia kicked in he was barely recognizable, which was a hard thing to witness when you knew him as the intellectual he was. The Father just nailed this subject, bringing back so many memories, memories we would rather forget but that you can't. Living with a loved one with this disease isn't easy at all, certainly not when that person sometimes doesn't remember who you are. I didn't knew Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his role, but after watching this movie I can only say it's highly deserved. It's probably one of his better performances ever, and that at 83 years old. The Father isn't a movie that will give you a lot of joy, it's sad and scary but certainly worth watching. Nobody wants to have a loved one suffering from dementia, it's a nightmare to live with. I remember my grandfather starting to smoke a cigarette like it was a thing he always did and that whilst he stopped more than forty years ago. I remember him telling me he was going crazy after asking me the same question for the twentieth time in barely an hour. He knew it was all going downhill, he knew he was a burden to everybody, and that must hurt when you are still that little bit lucid to understand that. I watched several movies about dementia but this one is just the most realistic. It's sad but that's life, everybody should watch it so they can be prepared if the disease ever would hit a loved one.

This is a film that stays with you. Of course there's the brilliant performances but there's more. While other films have taken on old age and dementia, those films took on coping with a significant other's condition. The difference here is that the film is from the sufferer's perspective. You therefore see these events as if you yourself have dementia. And it's stunning how, when you walk away, you know you can.

Wow. This story is expertly crafted that I just don't know what is real and what isn't. Amazing acting too.

Anthony Hopkins portrays in a fantastic way how life erodes, piece by piece, when dementia takes over an old man's life. Olivia Coleman, who plays his daughter, shows with greatness how painful and sad it is to see her loved father slowly disappear into the fog. The film really grabbed me and tore my heart apart.