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Fraternity of Paternity: Unconventional Movie Dads
A look at some of the best off-kilter fathers in cinema.
I have neither the inclination nor digital ink to go into my own daddy issues here, but suffice to say I’m conflicted whenever Father’s Day rolls around each year. Living as an expat for so much of my life, I often turn to movies to remind me of the people and traditions ‘back home’, if it’s even still appropriate to call it that.
So whenever the third Sunday in June comes around, I have to check in with that petulant inner child of mine and ask “what kind of movie do you want to watch, little man?” How do I engage with the holiday this year, with a bit of funny “dad in over his head” comedy to cheer myself up? With a grim family-drama to remind myself that there are much more overbearing dads than mine ever was? Nah, screw all that. Whatever I watch, I’d feel desperately cheesy if it was just some straight father-son story. I need something that approaches this much more obliquely…
With that in mind, here are five (+1) less conventional picks for Father’s Day movies. They might not be the first ones you think of, but there’s a good watch here whether your inner child feels like being coddled…or working out some issues.
The Reluctant Dad
If you’ve ever felt unwanted, how about a story where dad literally says “I didn’t ask for this” and repeatedly drives away from you? Logan (2017) sees longtime thirst trap Hugh Jackman reprise his role as the X-Men’s Wolverine — only an older, broken-down, less sexy version. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. You got a twofer with the reluctant daddy issues in this one, as the Wolverine (a.k.a. Logan, or “James”) finds himself both adopted son to a difficult father, and adopted father to a difficult daughter.
Said father is played by the legendary Patrick Stewart as an aged Professor X in the early stages of dementia. The film capitalises on the rich history (both on screen and off) between Jackman and Stewart to portray some touching moments as the Professor fears the burden he’s become to Logan, and also fears Logan will never have the life Charles wanted for him. The chemistry is almost as rich between Jackman and newcomer Dafne Keen, who gives him a taste of his own medicine by being just as stubborn and wild as Logan ever was. It’s an inter-generational story of finding family in strange places, and if you find your room getting a bit dusty at points, that’s not just the cinematography.
Honorable Mentions: Paper Moon and This Boy’s Life.
The Absent Dad
Taika Waititi’s second film, Boy (2010), saw him writing, directing, and co-starring as Alamein, a ne’er-do-well hustler who reunites with his son after seven years in prison for robbery. But his return home to the tiny settlement of Raukokore on New Zealand’s North Island isn’t to make up for lost time with his son… it’s to dig up the loot and head off to a better life! The 12-year-old son, known simply as “Boy”, has grown up with only faint memories of his father, and dreamed of the day that his idealized dad would come back and rescue the family from poverty. His dad seems to have little interest in the role though, showing only some disappointment that his main squeeze (Boy’s mom) isn’t around, having died in giving birth to Boy’s little brother, Rocky. And this is a comedy!
What prevents these far-too-real deadbeat dad issues from turning the film into an overwhelming emotional slog is Waititi’s management of the tone between whimsy and weight. Boy and Rocky have grown up with little but their imagination, and we’re treated to scenes of them fantasizing, idolizing Michael Jackson (this is set in 1984), and playing with a “pet” goat. The kids basically raising themselves has echoes of The Florida Project (2017), and also has the same playfulness as Michel Gondry’s short films and Be Kind, Rewind (2008). The journey as boy attempts to win over his dad and earn his love alternates between heartbreaking and heartwarming, and is anything but predictable. What Waititi pulls off here is what gave him his career, and it’s the best film to date where he doesn’t let the comedy undercut the dramatic impact (*cough*Thor: Ragnarok*cough*)
Honorable Mentions: Onward and The Wrestler.
The OVER-Committed Dad
While most kids who lived through the ’80s in the US remember a time of being turned loose on the streets for hours at a time unsupervised, some parents genuinely worried for their kids’ safety. Not from asbestos, windowless vans, or climate change, mind you. No, the real danger was Satanists! Heavy Metal! The Gays! Jeff Nichols’ film, Take Shelter (2011), deals with a typical Midwestern father who’s just trying to do right by his family. Estranged for various reasons from his own family, virtually everything he does is to support his wife and their young girl, who has recently become deaf. He works long days at a drilling company and picks up overtime on weekends, but his daughter Hannah’s special school and the cochlear implant they’re hoping for aren’t something a blue-collar worker can easily afford.
And then come the visions. Plagued by increasingly vivid and menacing dreams, both asleep and awake, Michael Shannon’s Curtis begins to suffer from fits of anxiety about Hannah’s safety. However, the traditional gender roles and masculine values clearly at play in his Pabst Blue Ribbon town don’t allow him to confide his feelings of panic and inadequacy to his wife, Samantha. She’s played with nuance and depth by either Jessica Chastain or Bryce Dallas Howard, only god knows which. And only god knows whether Curtis’ visions are prophetic warnings of a Biblical-scale catastrophe… or the early stages of mental illness. Whichever, Curtis only knows that he needs to do whatever it takes to protect his daughter, even potentially from Samantha… or himself.
Honorable Mentions: Taken and Mrs. Doubtfire.
The ‘Never Going to Live Up to Your’ Dad
Sometimes a dad’s neither too distant nor too present, too strict nor too permissive. But simply by the virtue of how awesome they are and how great a job of dad-ing they’re doing, it can seem hopeless that you’ll ever be able to live up to their expectations. Nowadays people mostly think of Chris Hemsworth for this flippant jokes, easy demeanor, and enormous arms. But before his MCU hero went the way of The Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Kenneth Branagh brought us a story very much about fathers and sons with Thor (2011).
It’s no spoiler to say that both Thor and Loki have a father who ends up disappointed in them. While Loki’s coping mechanisms tend towards regicide, Thor follows his comic roots and acts the fool. He’s brash and mouthy and not Kingly material. The drive to make dad proud is a pretty broadly resonant theme, but despite doing pretty well both critically and commercially, Thor has always been rather under-appreciated in Marvel’s canon. Makes you wonder how much overlap there is in a Venn diagram between people who call this boring, those who call Branagh’s Hamlet and Henry V boring, and those who call anything with prologues and voiceover boring. (I think it’s like 80–90% the same people.) Regardless, this is not boring, especially if you watch it without the mixed up chronology, as it always should have been.
Honorable Mentions: The Lion King and Dune.
The ‘Never Going to Live Down Your’ Dad
Some kids live under the pressure of knowing their dad wasn’t an awesome guy. They go to great lengths to make up for the actions or image of their dads, sometimes even forming their own self-identity around compensating for their fathers. In Robert Zemeckis’ “instant classic” Back to the Future (1985), teen superstar Michael J. Fox plays Morty…sorry, Marty McFly, a Ferris Bueller-type high school rebel who’s got style, musical talent, and is dating someone impossibly hot for him. All this belies Marty’s very uncool home life, where his sweet-but-dorky parents seem to live by the motto “be thankful for what you have, and don’t try to rise above your place.”
The paradox-courting time travel exploits of Marty and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) are pretty well known even to the kids these days, but the father-son aspect of the movie sometimes gets overlooked. Marty has an almost palpable sense of disgust at the level his parents have comfortably sunk to, and it’s not much better when he meets the youthful version of his dad (the inimitable Crispin Glover). Kids taking on the parental role can happen later in life (as in Logan), but it’s not often a teenager finds themselves mentoring their own parent. Part of this film’s charm is in how Fox as Marty patiently and sympathetically deals with his bumbling father. It’s one of the rare times in movies where you’re earnestly hoping the main protagonist doesn’t “get the girl”.
Honorable Mentions: Return of the Jedi and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
The ‘World’s Greatest Dad’
This bonus pick won’t be for everyone, but I have to bring up Bobcat Goldthwait’s indie gem, which I wrote all about here. Suffice to say that one of Robin Williams’ last films, World’s Greatest Dad (2009), is a tour-de-force. There’s a real arc to how much you identify with him as a long-suffering dad of a son who’s, honestly, a real d-bag. But the choices this dad ends up stumbling into will test how much you sympathize with him by the time you get to the end. This is a film that’s better to watch without knowing much, but I’ll just say it’s got real drama and a lot of laughs… if you’ve got a taste for dark, cynical comedy. If you’ve already hit the main categories of dad films, or you’re just ready to try something different, throw this on for Father’s Day. Without the kids around.
Header image designed by Dan Owen.
