Four Movies for Fathers of Sons and Sons of Fathers

Frequency (2000). The most heart-warming shotgun killing ever produced by the cinematic arts. You may even need to wipe aside a tear. Unlike the other titles to follow, there is also a mother in this movie. An underlying theme is that when a boy doesn’t have both his father and his mother, life ain’t right.

Mosquito Coast (1986). The narrator begins with the lines, “My father was an inventor, a genius with anything mechanical. Nine patents, six pending. He dropped out of Harvard, ‘to get an education’, he said. I grew up with the belief that the world belonged to him, and that everything he said was true.” He ends it with, “Once I had believed in father, and the world had seemed small, and old. Now he was gone, and I wasn’t afraid to love him any more. And the world seemed limitless.” A movie that will make cynical idealists squirm from the too close resemblance.

The Chosen (1981). Two fathers and two sons. I recall Potok saying that a Methodist dentist funded the production in order to get out there a movie about a couple of good boys who are obedient and study hard and have strong relationships with their fathers.

A Loving Father (2002). “Real-life father and son Gerard Depardieu and Guillaume Depardieu star in this almost too-close-for-comfort drama about fame and a dysfunctional family. Paul is a menacing yet sympathetic twenty-something drifter who has lived his life in the shadow of Leo, his emotionally distant father. Leo is a celebrated novelist who has just won a Nobel Prize. In a moment of desperation, Paul abducts Leo and tries to connect with him as they travel the English countryside. ‘A Loving Father’ traces the complexities of family dynamics in this bitterly funny tale.” This one has sat in my drawer for three months. I enjoy Depardieu’s performances. I liked his son in “The Count of Monte Cristo.” I’ll probably like this one when I get around to it, but that summary always leaves me preferring to watch something else instead.