Start your Oscar predictions now, people – while it’s going to be a very different kind of ceremony in 2021, here comes a film that looks like it could be picking up some significant awards heat, especially for its two leads. Because individually, Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman are capable of putting in some truly incredible work. Stick them together, in an emotional family thriller that looks both twisty and teary? Well, it could be worth Academy gold. Take a look for yourself in the trailer for The Father, starring Hopkins as an elderly man whose mind might be playing tricks on him, and Colman as his daughter, who might not be completely trustworthy.
From the looks of things, The Father will be a dementia movie with a genre twist to it – bringing viewers into the unreliable perspective of Hopkins’ increasingly confused patriarch, questioning what’s real and who’s telling the truth, while still delivering the emotional punch of a straight-up Oscar-friendly drama. The film is by director Florian Zeller, adapting his own French-language stage play Le Père in a screenplay he’s co-written with Christopher Hampton. And beyond Hopkins and Colman, there’s a great supporting cast here too, including Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss, Olivia Williams and Imogen Poots.
All things being well (which, well, isn’t a guarantee), The Father is expected to arrive in UK cinemas in early 2021 – another sign that this could be a hit come awards season. We’ll find out if so when the film, and the 93rd Oscars, arrives next year.