Yesterday an HE sorehead wrote that Florian Zeller‘s The Father (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.20.21) “isn’t happening. Or anything related to it. It’s another self-inflated bubble among movie pundits who will have no existence whatsoever in the real world.”

HE reply: “You’ve seen The Father? If you have you’re really crazy to have said that. It’s not a ‘bubble’ movie in the slightest. The idea of putting the audience into the shoes of an aging fellow with dementia is one of the most striking and inventive strategies for a domestic drama that I’ve seen in a long time. And Anthony Hopkins is nothing short of brilliant in the role. Everyone gets old and loses their edge to some extent. (Except for Gore Vidal, whom I spoke to a year or so before the end and seemed sharp as a tack.). And almost every family or middle-aged son or daughter has dealt with a declining parent. It’s about as un-bubbled and ‘real world’ a subject as you can find.”