When Did You Last See Your Father?

Director: Anand Tucker
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Juliet Stevenson, Gina McKee, Sarah Lancashire, Elaine Cassidy, Clare Skinner
Genre: Biography/Drama 2007
Running time: 92 mins.
Rating:★★★

An accomplished writer and poet, Blake Morrison (Colin Firth) has come to his parents' home to spend the few final days with his dying father, Arthur (Jim Broadbent), a kindhearted but exasperating country doctor whose oftentimes boorish behavior has led to his son's increasing estrangement. Yet as Arthur slowly slips away, memories of their past (both good and bad), force Blake to accept the possibility that his "immortal, invincible, and infallible" father is, after all, only human. Adapted from the memoirs by Blake Morrison.

Wonderful use of warm and cool colors to bring you back and forth through Blake Morrison's (Colin Firth) memories of his life with his father (Jim Broadbent) with the days leading up to his father's dying days.  The warm and vibrant days, when Blake would try to rebel against his father's sometimes unconventional ways. Days when he would take risks and try to live on the "wild" side. The ever present, as the news of his father's struggle with cancer has turn to the worst, the blue and washed out undertones to illustrate the regret Blake's fractured relationship with his father, Arthur. How does one begin to glue back together the pieces with someone, who they spent a lifetime trying to runaway from that same person? How does go through life noticing everything going on and not being able to say anything because of how it may effect one's mother? Suppressed-unanswered questions of his father's choices and bad decisions that bring back some anger issues from his upbringing. Will he let those final days slip away before being able to say his final farewells to his father? What he soon discovers that with all of his father's faults and mistakes, they had some terrific and embarrassingly hilarious times together! Peace and forgiveness is made, perhaps not in the way Blake wanted, but in the way that nature allowed it.

The cinematography was beautifully done for even without the dialogue, soundtrack, or movement, you can still be struck to the core in awe and in love of your own father (biological or not). The growth and lavishness of the countryside to the cuts of man-made structures and roads, all illustrate all that was Blake's father and all the love his father gave him.