When Did You Last See Your Father? Blake (Colin Firth) was always a shadow to his outgoing father, Arthur (Jim Broadbent) a man who made a life out of womanizing, boozing and scams. Yet Blake’s father was stoic and invincible until one day, when he wasn’t. That was the day that they announced to Blake and his mother, Kim (Juliet Stevenson) that father has only a few short weeks to live. As Firth spends most of his role floating around the house, hands in pockets, reminiscing his childhood, the movie sucks us into his vortex of confusion, many flashbacks, and of his need to hear the two little words his father never said ‘Well done.’ As with the dynamics of most father/son relationships, this one explores parent and child, past and present, and in this case, secrets from a father who perpetually overshadows his son. Is it possible to know somebody for a lifetime and not know them at all? Can the life of a father be recreated through the voyeuristic journey of a son, Blake (Matthew Beard as 17) who sees the world as a possible sexual outlet and journey himself? Extremely well shot, the professionally helmed direction of Anand Tucker comes to a complete climax of story and audience in the movie’s final moments, when the question ‘when did you last see your father?’ is finally explained, and will have you [the audience] in a tearful memory of one’s own parent. Four tiaras
