The Father Review: 5 Ups And 2 Downs

7. Down: The Restrictions Of Adapting A Play

Play adaptations are tricky and often lead to a varying degree of success. In the last 12 months alone, you have Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and One Night in Miami being prominent play adaptations in addition to The Father. As a play usually uses as minimal locations and action beats as possible, you can expect intimate stories with expansive amounts of dialogue. This does not always make for a great cinematic experience.

The Father is no where near the worst offender here, Ma Rainey struggled greatly to engage audiences amongst its several long monologues while One Night in Miami succeeded in keeping things fresh by moving around as much as it could.

The Father falls in between the two, it doesn't have too many elongated scenes with over-the-top monologues, but it is almost exclusively contained to Anthony's flat with minimal location changes.

The film does actually find a way to keep the flat cinematic (more on that later) and the visuals of dementia are strong but it doesn't change the fact that some viewers may not be used to such a restricted location.