“Forever My Girl” by Bethany Ashton Wolf (USA, 2018)

A movie that not only celebrates everlasting love, but adds to it family, religious, and small town values in a most simplistic and nauseating way / Propaganda cinema at its best! And it works: the public seems to like it (6,4 on IMDB and an astonishing 9 as audience score on Rotten Tomatoes)! So depressing! 😦

Cast: Alex Roe, Jessica Rothe, John Benjamin Hickey, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tyler Riggs, Peter Cambor, Gillian Vigman, Morgan Alexandria
Director: Bethany Ashton Wolf
Writer: Bethany Ashton Wolf
Music by Brett Boyett
Cinematography by Duane Manwiller

Advertisements

“The Glass Castle” by Destin Cretton (USA, 2017)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

Love your father no matter what / You can’t live with yourself and reject where you come from… These are a few of the messages in this ode to the family that is in fact a glorification of patriarchy and that ends in syrupy sentimentality / Ill-adapted flashbacks

Cast: Brie Larson, Naomi Watts, Woody Harrelson, Max Greenfield, Ella Anderson, Sarah Snook, Olivia Kate Rice, Dominic Bogart Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Sadie Sink
Director: Destin Cretton
Writer (based upon the book by) Jeannette Walls
Writer: Destin Cretton, Andrew Lanham
Cinematographer: Brett Pawlak
Editor: Nat Sanders
Composer: Joel P. West

“The Long Excuse” by Miwa Nishikawa (Japan, 2016)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

Erasing motherhood: a rare look at fatherhood and male altruism

Cast: Masahiro Motoki, Pistol Takehara, Eri Fukatsu
Director: Miwa Nishikawa
Writers: Miwa Nishikawa (screenplay), Miwa Nishikawa (novel)
Music: Michiaki Katoh, Toshihiro Nakanishi
Cinematography: Yutaka Yamazaki
Film Editing: Ryûji Miyajima

“Comfort” (William Lu, USA 2016)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

Pleasant movie, nice chemistry, good dialogues. The moralizing and feel-good ending is a pity.

Cast: Kevin Ashworth, Michael Boucher, Michael Bow
Director: William Lu
Writer: William Lu
Music: Scott Gilman
Cinematography: Aashish Gandhi
Editing: Brady Hallongren

“Into The Forest” by Patricia Rozema (Canada, 2015)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

Good story and realization, average content
Three men: the father, the lover, the raper / Three women: ywo sisters + deceased mother
The “scifi” setting that was perhaps justified when the story was written in 1996 doesn’t convey anything to the plot today.

Cast: Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood, Callum Keith Rennie, Max Minghella
Director: Patricia Rozema
Based on the novel by Jean Hegland
Writer: Patricia Rozema
Cinematographer: Daniel Grant
Editor: Matthew Hannam
Composer: Max Richter

“Infinitely Polar Bear” by Maya Forbes (USA, 2014)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

Many good things about this movie: good humor, good dialogues, very good acting by Ruffalo. Add to this the efficient way to stage multiple facets about minorities  (depressed parent, mixed-race family, single father household, etc,).
The way the two daughters evolve and learn how to cope with their lovable but manic-depressive father is remarkable.

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Keir Dullea, Beth Dixon, Georgia Lyman
Director: Maya Forbes
Writer: Maya Forbes
Director of Photography: Bobby Bukowski
Music by Theodore Shapiro
Film Editing by Michael R. Miller

“Manchester By The Sea” (Kenneth Lonergan, USA 2016)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

strong script and direction

A movie essentially focused on male characters, in which women play a subdued role.
An uncommon and powerful representation of how a father experiences the loss of his children somewhat compensates the gender unbalance of the movie.

Interestingly, the music is not intended to fit a particular scene but does include several ones, creating an overarching level of expression that transcends that of the scene itself. In some of the critical passages, the personages talk but the dialogue is not heard, being replaced by the music that links the scene to the previous one.

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol, C.J. Wilson
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Writer: Kenneth Lonergan
Cinematographer: Jody Lee Lipes
Editor: Jennifer Lame
Composer: Lesley Barber