| “ | And when did you last see your father? Was it when they burned the coffin? Put the lid on? When he exhaled his last breath? When he sat up and said something? When he last recognized you? When he last smiled? When did you last see your father? The last time he was healthy, active? The last time he had an argument about something? Those weeks in which we tried to say goodbye were like a series of depletion's. Each day I thought 'he can't get less like himself than this.' Yet each day he did. So I've been trying to recall the last time I actually saw him. The last time he was unmistakeably... there. In the fullness of being, I dunno... him. | „ |
| ~ Blake Morrison |
Philip Blake Morrison, also known as Blake Morrison, is the tragic main protagonist of the 2007 British biographical drama movie When Did You Last See Your Father? He was portrayed by Colin Firth, who also portrayed Cedric Brown in Nanny McPhee, George VI in The King's Speech and Harry Hart in the Kingsman franchise, in his teenage self was portrayed by Matthew Beard and as a child portrayed by Bradley Johnson.
Biography[]
After a long time, the writer Blake stays with his wife in his parents' house. He is awarded a prize for his work, but receives no recognition from his father Arthur. As always, he quietly reprimands and mocks the achievements of his now grown-up son. Blake suffers from his father's attitude and would have liked him to say "Well done!" at least on the occasion of the award ceremony. Some time later, the father collapses while installing a chandelier. In the hospital, terminal cancer is detected. The doctors don't know how long Arthur will live, and Blake eventually moves back to his parents' house for the last weeks of his father's life. Again and again he remembers humiliating events from his childhood and youth. While he was impressed by his father's ostentatious manner as a child, his domineering and central nature soon weighed on the sensitive boy. The idea that his father could have an affair with "Aunt" Beaty and that his cousin Josie was actually his half-sister tormented him for a long time and did not let go of him until adulthood. Other scenes of humiliation – such as during a family vacation, during which the shy and book-loving teenager Blake was exposed in front of the young hotel attendant – are mixed with memories of family celebrations where the father flirted unrestrainedly with Aunt Beaty and other women. Scenes in which Blake had started an affair with the housekeeper and both were almost caught in bed together by Arthur also bring Blake back to consciousness. He wants to talk to his father, but Arthur, who is now bedridden, puts him off until another day. A short time later, Arthur's condition has deteriorated so much that he wets himself and no longer recognizes anyone. A short time later, he dies without a debate having taken place. Blake confesses to his wife that he feels betrayed. He cannot grieve, but lives out his always hidden hatred against his father by carrying his pacemaker, which has been cut out of his chest, like a trophy. The funeral takes place, and Blake asks Beaty to talk it out. He wants to know what the relationship was like between her and Arthur. She confesses that they both had an affair because she was unhappy in their marriage. He comforted her – whether they slept together, she wants to keep to herself as a memory. However, she reveals to him that Arthur has always been very proud of him, but has never been able to show it. In a quiet moment, Blake remembers saying goodbye to his parents' house just before he started college and how he turned down his father's offer to drive him and took a taxi instead. He recalls the moment when they both embraced at the end and the father cried in oppression. He now confesses to his father that he misses him and begins to cry. A little later, the family scatters Arthur's ashes on the estate. Blake remembers the last time he saw his father before he became more and more dissimilar from the disease. It was the moment when both of them had screwed the chandelier to the wall and turned it on for the first time. In the glow of the chandelier, they both rejoiced before the father abruptly turned off the light and tackled the next project.