Big Screen Fathers

Are there even missing mom movies?

Not missing parents, but missing moms? Well, maybe, But who cares because the missing — either physically or emotionally — father is one of the easiest ways for a screenwriter to add character development and possibilities.

He (the father) doesn't even have to be a part of the plot. His lack of presence — i.e., that is the denying of a character the possibilities of a pop — revs viewers minds. A few current (more or less) examples.

Clint Eastwood will be parading his new movie The Changeling (soundtrack thanks to his son Kyle) to the folks at Cannes at the end of the month. In the movie, a father is doubly absent as a son is "returned" but not the son of the single mom to whom he is given.

In City of Men missing fathers and their secrets which kept from two boys in a Brazilian slum drives the war withing the drug war.

And in The Stone Angle a wealthy but emotionally withdrawn dad sets his one daughter on a picaresque travail via marriage and children with a man who is set in counterpoint to her father.

** Movies offer life with dad in its many forms, only [hopefully] with the dull parts cut out. **