End and real meaning explained

The fatherThe ending is a twisting and emotional journey that leaves the movie on a heartbreaking note. The film was Florian Zeller’s directorial debut, and suddenly appeared on most viewers’ radar when Anthony Hopkins upset Chadwick Boseman for best actor at the 2021 Oscars ceremony. Disagreement aside, Zeller The father With a towering performance from Hopkins, as well as an expert plot screenplay from Zeller, whose direction gives the film a perspective that connotes the perplexing artwork of MC Escher. But the story of the acclaimed 2020 film begins in 2012 with the premiere of Le Père.

Zeller wrote the play Le Pèrewhich earned him widespread criticism in the theater community in early 2012. He wrote The fatherAnthony’s lead role specifically for Hopkins, believing him to be the “Greatest living actor“(by Term). Anthony’s daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) is trying to find a long-term care solution for her stubborn but often confused father. The father It is told subjectively from Anthony’s point of view, affected by his dementia, making certain facts seem to change in the course of the narrative. Such frustrations culminate in The fathers ending scene.

What happens in the father’s final scene?

Anthony is left in a heartbreaking but inevitable reality

At the end of The fatherAnthony’s flat has reached the end of several iterations and has become an assisted living facility, where he is cared for by his nurse Catherine (Olivia Williams) and her assistant Bill (Mark Gatiss). The father Has actors play multiple characters As a Thematic representation of dementia; These guardians are faces Anthony has seen before, having noticed his daughter and son-in-law each as bearing a resemblance to Catherine and Bill at one point or another.

In the final scene, it is clear that Anthony’s hold on reality has slipped to the point where he can no longer overcome the effort to decide which of his memories are real and which are disjointed composites of his experiences.

In an emotionally gut-wrenching scene that is the film’s climax, Anthony remembers his mother to Catherine and suddenly refuses to go home as tears overwhelm him. He confides in Catherine that he feels he is “Lost all his pages– In his wanderings and deprived of the things that gave him the value of life, as he cries in Katerina’s arms, she settles in. And he tells him that he will soon not remember these inconveniences, that they will go for a walk later. And everything will be fine.

finally, The fatherHis camera ventures out his window, observing the trees whose leaves rustle in the wind. It is a heartbreaking and personal moment in the film Which elevates the emotional aspects of his character’s story, which is often filled with so much confusion, haunted memories, and uncertainty about what’s real and what’s not. As if Anthony’s emotional monologue wasn’t enough to bring audiences to tears, The father‘s ending song is the chilling “My Journey,” a fitting score for the film’s story.

What was real and what was in Anthony’s head in the father

It is difficult to say what just went on in his head

Because of the subjective, labyrinthine quality of The fatherIt is easy to wonder what actually happened to Anthony and what he imagined or mistakenly put together in his mind. The film puts the patriarch in the foreground, and asks the audience to relate to him in a way that reflects the character’s feelings of being victimized by his environment. He often remembers faces, especially Ann as Catherine and Paul as Bill.

In one shot, he is smothered by Anne in his sleep. In another scene, Paul physically assaults him. In yet another, Anthony discovers his daughter and son-in-law speak ill of him, only to join them, leave, and return to the same scenario he first encountered. Certainly, at a minimum, the smothering is imagined, given he lives through to the end of The father. it Emphasizes the sense of vulnerability Anthony feels at the hands of Paulwho slapped him very hard and spoke to him harshly.

Then there’s the matter of his midnight visit with his youngest daughter, Lucy. It is implied that she had a serious accident and probably died. Anthony, unable to remember this, always brings up the subject, especially about how much his last caretaker resembles her. in one of The fatherIn later scenes, he explores the plane, finding it to be a hospital, where he finds Lucy, bloodied and in a brace, lying in a bed with all kinds of medical machinery about her.

He suddenly wakes up from what was a dream or memory, finds himself in his assisted care facility, where he will spend the rest of the film.

Lucy being deceased makes sense, considering how emotional Anthony gets when remembering her. What’s more, his treatment of his living daughter, Anne, is harsh, as if he is angry with her for having survived while his more favored daughter is no longer around. There is an honesty to these moments, although what can be parsed is that Anne is also at her wit’s end caring for her father, who is often cruel to her because of his dementia, but also his underlying resentment towards her and what happened to Lucy.

Did Anthony die at the end of The Father?

The ending suggests the heartbreaking final scene has been played out before

During the time he is in the care of an assisted living facility, Anthony’s understanding of the world around him in The father has deteriorated to the point of necessitating constant monitoring. The movie ends with the promise that he and Catherine will continue a routine that is clearly ongoing, although the audience and Anthony would not be able to tell.

Despite the perceived obviousness of a movie focusing on a parent with dementia, The fatherThe last scene ends not on a shot of Anthony peacefully drifting into the afterlife, but instead on the trees outside his room. Although his fate is all but determined, The father‘s last scene has more to say about his final situation than just whether he lived or died.

The real meaning of the father’s end

There can be no hope in the heartbreaking final scene

It’s hard to find a positive takeaway in a story where the subject is as fundamentally terminal as this The father’sBut Zeller manages to support The fatherIts meaning as a movie with the help of a visual metaphor. As Catherine consoles a distraught and disconnected Anthony, she identifies the comfort of his condition: although he is now suffering under the weight of his end, fortunately, his dementia means he does not remember his suffering.

Instead of fighting the age, or finding a clear confirmation in which his daughter stays with him through the bitter end, Zeller comes moment by moment to dementia, with Catherine encouraging Anthony to focus on what is immediate to him.

Finally, people grow old, and children need to live their lives. It is also interesting in this way The father Tackles memories, with Anthony mostly losing himself in the moments that brought him emotional pain – he is often scared, heartbroken, afraid of being attacked because of his confusion, or feeling out of place. to this end, The fatherThe meaning is profound because of the way it explores dementia as a labyrinthine trip through the mind of someone who has it.

at the end of The fatherThe tree still has its leaves, and perhaps this is the most optimistic statement about Anthony’s condition of all. He lived a life Regardless of whether it would be considered good or bad (or both)And the tree’s leaves indicate growth and blossoming in life, as it cycles on no matter what.

Why Anthony Hopkins won the best actor for the father

The end of the father may have cemented Hopkins’ victory

through and through The father would not have worked without a performance as compelling as that of Sir Anthony Hopkins. Whether or not The father It’s another conversation, but it’s undeniable that Hopkins’ infuriating, terrifying and heartbreaking portrayal of a man’s struggle with dementia was the driving factor in the movie’s success. On the other hand, this cannot necessarily be said about Hopkins’ competitors for the Oscar award in 2021 for best actor.

The other nominees in the category are Riz Ahmed for The Sound of MetalSteven Yeun for MinorGary Oldman for Lackand Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Although these actors are phenomenal in their respective films, the successes of their movies are arguably not primarily hinged on their performances, as was the case for Hopkins. Despite the controversy over whether Chadwick Boseman should have won, Hopkins is undeniably deserving of Best Actor Award for his strong performance in The fatherEspecially for the poignant scene that can bring even the most cynical of viewers to tears.

The father last scene explained by the director

Zeller also talked about Anthony’s memorable final line

Zeller again dealt with The fatherS Anthony Hopkins for the movie The sun Which serves as a companion piece to this one. The two working together again is not surprising because of their successful collaboration with The father. Zeller (via: Esquire) specifically talked about working with Hopkins and Olivia Colman on their final scene and the importance of it. with The whole story hinges on the endingZeller explains:

“We shot the scene a little nervously, too, because we knew that the emotions we were supposed to achieve were raw, brutal, truthful and not easy to get. It was a very deep moment for us.“

Zeller also asked the actors not to rehearse, so that they could arrive at the emotional moments on camera. Once Colman leaves the movie and Anthony has his final breakdown, the line he delivers about “Lost all my pages” was also a vital part of the scene for Zeller.

Just as the nurse doesn’t understand what Anthony is saying with the line, Zeller admits that he wrote it as a line that doesn’t really mean anything, but at the same time the audience would understand exactly what Anthony is trying to convey. He explained that the line was meant to sum up what the entire experience of the movie should have been for the audience:

“You don’t understand what’s going on, and at the same time, on another level, emotionally, you understand everything.”

How the end of the father was received

The Oscar-nominated movie has high ratings from critics and audience members

Fans and critics alike praised The father For its story, the performances in the film, and the powerful and heartfelt ending. The critics score on Rotten Tomatoes was a certified fresh 98%, which was almost perfect. Most of the negative reviews dismiss the idea that dementia and memory loss act like this in the minds of those affected. however, The audience score was also very high 92%One of the rare movies where the critics and paying customers agree on the quality of the film.

A Reddit Thread started as the movie gained its Oscar buzz, and many fans pointed out the high-quality ending. One redditor wrote, “The end caught me and my wife. I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer’s a few years ago, And the movie made me wonder what it was like in her own head when she submitted to him.“The running theme through this for fans was that Anthony Hopkins’ performance was heartbreaking, and the editing and tricks used made the ending even more impressive.

For the critics, The ending tied things up The fatherAs it showed how the confusion running throughout the film is similar to what Anthony felt Throughout the movie (and the later stages of his life). In his review for the US Boston GlobeCritic Ty Burr wrote, “It’s a film to make you sit in the dark long after the credits have rolled and look deep into things we usually look away from.” Time Film critic Stephanie Zacharek praised the open-ended, heartbreaking ending that answers no questions easily:

“The father Can only reflect on the questions, not answer them … in the father Anthony invites us to join, to get a sense of how it feels, but we can only follow so far. Leaving him is both a relief and a heartache. “

Finally, Peter Travers of ABC News Shows why Anthony Hopkins deserves his Oscar and how The father It deserves all the praise it gets. “Anthony Hopkins delivers a master class in acting as a once-brilliant man losing his mental faculties to the scourge of dementia. First-time director Florian Zeller turns his modern “King Lear” from a play into essential cinema.“

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