I’ll get it out of the way: I’m not actually that much of an Anthony Hopkins fan. He’s certainly great in many of his appearances, and he’s never not watchable, but I often feel that I’m watching a trademarked Anthony Hopkins performance, something that has the purpose of making the material he appears in look better than it really is. There’s no one like Hopkins to make mediocre scripts and outright schlock seem more classy, at least at a first glance, than what they really are – but a bit like that other saint of modern cinema, Meryl Streep, it’s rare that I watch a performance by Anthony Hopkins without being entirely aware that that is what I’m watching.

While I can’t say that Anthony Hopkins is unrecognisable in The Father, I will say that Hopkins the celebrity vanishes into Anthony the character almost entirely. And it is bitterly ironic that the character I’m watching is on the verge of vanishing himself.

Continue reading →