COME TO DADDY

Director
Ant Timpson

Starring
Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley and Madeleine Sami

A co-production of New Zealand, Ireland and Canada, the idea for this feature film by debutant director Ant Timpson originated from a deeply personal experience. Ordinarily, knowledge of such a fact would all but guarantee the film sharing this to be quite a heartfelt and emotional ride. But COME TO DADDY is no ordinary film!

It has been the best part of three decades since the thirty-something Norval (Elijah Wood) has seen his estranged father, Gordon (Stephen McHattie). Understandably, he’s a little nervous the moment he arrives at the secluded residence of his father’s home. It seems Gordon might be too, judging by the peculiar reaction to his son’s visit. It doesn’t take long at all though for Norval’s visit to go from being peculiar to downright uncomfortable. His father makes no attempt to conceal an obvious alcohol problem and his escalating aggression isn’t exactly making him feel welcomed, especially considering it was Gordon who invited him over. When Norval demands to know why he’s been invited, it triggers a reaction and consequent answers he never expected.

Everything that happens in COME TO DADDY is almost entirely dependent on what happens next for it reach your hit or shit list! Everything hinges on its secret. Until then, there should be very little effort required of viewers to get sucked right in by its very deliberate ability to tease. I for one wanted to know just as much as Norval did the elusive reason for his father’s random request and why Gordon’s demeanour is becoming so threatening. It is these burning questions, Elijah Wood’s rock-solid work and his characters’ pragmatic handling of the escalating situation that maintained my interest, despite something always feeling unintentionally off in the film’s execution and Stephen McHattie’s performance.

Shortly before COME TO DADDY lets its cat out of the bag, it broadens its scope to tease to psychological and darkly comical extents. As it turns out, this is when the film makes the most out of its alluring premise and hits its peak. It’s as if air were tension and that tension filled a balloon that’s ready to pop. The moment COME TO DADDY’s major revelation is popped, its lack of originality instantly lets down and had me saying ‘oh, is that all’. The trajectory of the plot and the change in genre thereafter are no match for the equivalent of what it produced earlier. Suddenly, COME TO DADDY is no longer in a teasing mood and virtually abandons any tendencies to creep-out. Instead, it becomes a dark comedy that grows more and more reliant on deriving humour and generating thrills from the unfortunate, forced and outrageous nature of events to take place until its end. A change and combination that just didn’t work for me, overall.

2½ stars

Come to Daddy (2019)