Screening Death

Let's watch dad die so we can figure out why we ever loved him.

That's an idea for a movie?

Some people seem to think so. "When Did You Last See Your Dad" (somehow we have lost the "And" preceding the current title for Blake Morrison's book ... and that is also the soundtrack title) received good notice when it opened in Britain last year and is now on the American market.

A large part of why the movie succeeds is thanks to the situation of the director, Anand Tucker. Asked why he chose this script, he explained:

Well, I have a complicated relationship with my dad, and I'm an old father with a young son who is four and a half, and so it arrived at a point where I was thinking all about my relationship with my dad, and becoming a dad myself. All of those big things when you get to your forties and you start thinking about all that kind of stuff. Weirdly enough, I found there was a lot going on in the script that really was going on in my head ...

** And doesn't that speak for most fathers? **