- guardian.co.uk,
- Monday February 04 2008 12:43 GMT
Jim Broadbent goes from strength to strength, with this portrayal of Blake Morrison's dad set against his recent Lord Longford and John Bayley in Iris as definitive examples of inhabiting very different characters with depth and reality. Again, once you've seen him in the part, it's hard to imagine anyone else doing it. This domineering, blustering and libidinous country doctor is a fine example of a father certain to embarrass any son, and especially a sensitive one who went on to become a poet and author. Ironically, Morrison's most famous work is the one adapted here, about a dad who refused to acknowledge his son's career, so the score is settled both on and off the screen. It reminded me a good deal of John Mortimer's A Voyage Around My Father (memorably portrayed by Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates on TV) though the annoyance/affection ratio leans a good deal further towards the former here. It's an articulate expression of those complicated parent-child relationships and all those questions and events that remain unresolved through premature death or memory loss.
Oddly, we never seem to see Broadbent's Morrison senior doing any actual doctoring, maybe because the son never saw that part of his life. But we see him flirting, forcibly teaching his son things in a way reminiscent of The Fast Show's competitive dad, referring to his offspring as "Fathead" on a regular basis and so dominating the film that Colin Firth comes over as a long-suffering but rather colourless offspring - not, presumably what Blake intended - while the women impress in parts that never threaten to become centre stage. As for Broadbent, it's difficult tro see him getting much better at impersonation than this, but I look forward greatly to his Richard Nixon in next year's Dirty Tricks.
