Much more than merely a role-reversal British version of KRAMER VS. KRAMER. Hopkins is divorced and distraught, a self-diagnosed victim of the feminism he once so ardently supported.
As the film opens, he takes on an outing the six-year-old son he sees only on weekends. Hopkins carries the boy on his shoulders, but there is a distant cast to his eyes; when he pushes his son on a swing, he pushes a little hard. He is curt with his ex-wife (Walter); when he returns the boy to
her, he quickly jumps on his motorcycle and speeds off into the night. As he zooms along, his mind's eye is overtaken by the surreal image of a baby's face smothered by womblike plastic. Hopkins becomes friends with Broadbent, whose radical-feminist wife (Viner) left him for a lesbian lover. Now
she is planning to emigrate to Australia, taking their young son with her. Hopkins encourages Broadbent to fight back, vicariously waging the campaign of vengeance he has never carried out against his own ex-wife.
Although nicely adapted from a Prince novel and adroitly directed by Newell, THE GOOD FATHER is Hopkins's film. His character is a hard man to like, yet by film's end Hopkins has made him a tragic figure. Outstanding support from Callow as a hardened lawyer. leave a comment
