ZERO SPOILERS: THE FATHER (2020)

I watched The Father without any idea what it was about. And, in my opinion, you should too. These days, that's often impossible. But if you can resist the urge to learn more in advance, please do.

What I can say without spoilers is that the film pulled me in from the very beginning in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I felt like I was in the movie as an invisible observer, and that the real life of the film was unfolding all around me. It simply felt genuine. In fact, it came closer to a voyeuristic experience than anything I’ve ever felt in a narrative film.

I’ve spent time trying to understand the magic of The Father. I’m not sure I’ve fully sorted it out, but I’m fairly certain of the following:

First, The Father captures the complex feeling of experiencing the real world, where, for each of us, the veneer of our perceptions is thin indeed. In the world of The Father, as in the real world, we can only trust our senses and memories so far — and that being requires an autonomic leap of faith, a shared illusion perhaps. Trust, but only so far.

Second, the acting is beautifully transparent and opaque, crossing the lines between inner life and outer manifestations seamlessly, with the choreography of a dream. We step into and out of the shoes of each character at a subconscious level, it seems, and begin to experience — in a remarkably firsthand way — the lives of others. I keep returning to the idea of magic, but that’s precisely what it feels like. It’s like experiencing empathy as an altered state of consciousness.

Third, the writing — and the writer — truly disappear. It makes you wonder if the author managed a trip into multiple personality disorder and found a way to manifest those personalities simultaneously.

Finally, the cinematography is beautiful and ultimately invisible. To me, that’s the highest praise. In so many films of late, the hands of the cinematographers and editors are obvious, particularly with so many visual tools that create dreamlike effects artificially rather than organically from the writing and performances. As in many other areas, the tools have become the thing.

I’ll confess one last thing: I can’t bring myself to watch The Father a second time. We can’t do that with real-life experiences, and I’m content to let it live alongside my other memories — something I’ll continue to process with each passing year. It’s that good.