When the grown-up children of a missing parent are reunited with their father, they discover it raises more questions than it answers in a well-crafted mood piece from writer/director Anne Fontaine. Jean-Luc (Charles Berling) is a well-to-do physician whose practice is devoted to older patients, many of whom are forced to confront their fears about death. While Jean-Luc is used to dealing with such issues, they come home for him one day when he learns that his father has died. The news prompts
Jean-Luc to look back at his younger days, and his difficult relationship with his dad, Maurice (Michel Bouquet), who ran out on his family when Jean-Luc was a boy and returned after he'd grown to adulthood with few explanations about where he'd gone (he became a volunteer physician in the Third World) and why he left his wife and children behind. Growing up in an air of uncertainty has had an impact on Jean-Luc's relationship with his wife Isa (Natacha Regnier); neither is certain of how to reach out to one another, and Jean-Luc sometimes seeks comfort in the arms of Myriem (Amira Casar), an assistant in his office. Maurice's absence also took its toll on Jean-Luc's brother, Patrick (Stephane Guillon), who deals with his anxieties by pursuing a career as a comic, while earning his keep as Jean-Luc's driver. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
The film is about the relationships rather than about the outcome. And it sees those relationships, including that between the son and his wife, and the wife and the father, and between the two brothers, with incredible subtlety and acumen.
Vet French actor Michel Bouquet renders such an astounding performance that he elevates Anne Fontaine's family melodrama way above its Freudian foundations and male menopause.
Whether writer-director Anne Fontaine's film is a ghost story, an account of a nervous breakdown, a trip down memory lane, all three or none of the above, it is as seductive as it is haunting.
How I Killed My Father would be a rarity in Hollywood. It's an actor's showcase that accomplishes its primary goal without the use of special effects, but rather by emphasizing the characters -- including the supporting ones.
How can you accept a parent's rejection? How can you imagine the most awful pain and disillusion if you lack any imagination. It's like walking on an amputated leg.
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