A Loving Father

I am usually not so strict and judgmental in my comments however I must say that, besides being a rather dramatic example of a spoiled father-son relationship, I have found this movie to be long and extremely empty in its plot.

Its cold strokes remind me a lot of Chabrol's "Merci pour le Chocolat", with Isabelle Huppert and Jacques Dutronc. I must say that, although I am a Depardieu's fan in most cases, Aime Ton Pere has left me empty handed at the end of the tape. I can't really say much about Guillame Depardieu, given the movie's lack of plot and spinal cord and the fact that I haven't had a chance to analyze his other performances. I can already say though that he belongs to a different breed of actors than the one Gerard comes from. If you care to see a cold and cynical Depardieu senior in a true quality performance, 36 Quai des Orferves will keep you on your toes.

A Loving Father is a difficult movie to watch for obvious reasons. While in most of their movies together, father and son Gérard and Guillaume Depardieu play older and younger versions of each other, in this movie they play a father and son with a bad relationship. At the time of its release, it might have been worth it to see good acting and hope the characters onscreen, a successful father and a son who can't measure up, could help them reconcile their relationship offscreen. Now, it's very sad to watch, if you're able to get through it. It just hits a little too close to home, as hurt and frustration radiates off both of them constantly.

Gérard is a Nobel Prize recipient who gets involved in a motorcycle accident while on the way to Stockholm. His estranged son discovers the accident and, after calling the French equivalent of 911, tucks his dad into his car and drives away. They hear on the radio that Gérard's wallet was discovered and he's presumed dead, and Guillaume takes advantage of the opportunity to have a father-son chat and hopefully fix their issues.

See what I mean about not being able to get through the movie? If you were able to watch Whitney Houston in Sparkle, I guess you'll be able to watch the Depardieus in A Loving Father. Just keep in mind that it's very sad. There are some other scenes with Sylvie Testud, Gérard's daughter, who has her own anger issues about her brother and her father, so you will have a break from time to time. If you don't even know what I'm talking about, then you'll be fine and you'll see some very good acting.

I'm not a big fan of Depardieu, but always felt he had good potential, so I gave this film a shot. Mostly a mistake. Depardieu Jr. has a long way to go before his lack of talent and obvious opportunist entry into the industry will be forgiven. The director's personal vendetta is irrelevant, since the story is universal, but this particular treatment wasn't bad. Just that really stupidly contrived ending! Why an eskimo "inner child"? Totally distracting, killing any afterglow the film's emotional tone had attempted to create. The costume and set design were either non-existent or inappropriate. And if one of the too many surreal glimpses of the ubiquitous and annoying inner child was shot incorrectly, do it over! Don't shoot the same glimpse from a different angle! What was Berger thinking? Definitely not a must see.

I must begin by emphasizing that the English title of this film is completely inappropriate. The correct translation of the French title is the imperative- Love Your Father.I think this fact is very key in the director's intention, as the story is really about that construct and not that of the erroneous The Loving Father.

I rarely feel so differently from other IMDb posters as I apparently do on this film. For me, Love Your Father was very realistic in its portrayal of all of the characters and their interactions.The messiness of it all, the many unanswered questions of motivation and action,history and future, were all part of a very realistic believable picture of a highly dysfunctional family.I suspected that the end would not clean up the mess,and it did not. However, I did think that the ferry and Nobel scenes showed that the brother and sister had finally really understood and accepted that they would never get what they had always wanted, and they could move forward as adults.As unexplained as it was, the very end gave me an interpretation of the future for the main character,cleanly echoed in the overlaid words of the Nobel recitation.So I did experience closure.

What I took away from the film is that great artists create and give great art to the world; they are driven to do this; it is not a rational or controllable decision for them. At the same time, they are often incapable of giving great things anywhere else in their lives.Almost invariably , they cannot give friends and family the love those people crave and deserve. So the 'loved ones' suffer immensely. Many other films and books have shown this irony; I thought Love Your Father did a terrific job of exposing it.

This movie is an extremely gripping story of family relations involving a famous father. Both Depardieus are wonderful but I was blown away by the performance of Sylvie Testud. She riveted me every moment that she was on the screen. The story focuses on Leo Shepherd (Gérard Depardieu)a famous writer on the verge of winning a Nobel prize and examines what life is like for those in the family where the father is the focus of international attention and adoration. Other family members are left to identify themselves relative to the father. While the focus of the film is on a famous father, the power children give their parents makes many of this film's story lines relevant to all.