Summary:
A man in his thirties travels to a remote cabin to connect with the father he never knew.
My Thoughts:
The best way to see this movie is to know absolutely nothing about it before you go in; that’s how my brother and I watched it- neither of us had even seen a trailer, and both of us found this movie to be wildly unpredictable, hysterical, and unlike anything else I’ve seen in recent memory. I will avoid as many spoilers as possible, because almost all of the fun this flick provides comes from the twists and craziness.
“I’m not someone you can pigeonhole, if I’m completely honest.”
Norval Greenwood (Elijah Wood, “LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring”) travels to a remote cabin where he meets his alcoholic father Gordon (Stephen McHattie, “The Fountain”). Things quickly get out of hand.
Again, I’m trying hard not to give too much away, because I honestly think that 90% of the fun of this film comes from not know what’s going to happen next. The thing that this film does incredibly well is handle shifts in tone, and the shifts happen frequently and are as jarring as they are humorous. What this film does is set up a relatively simple premise- a man going to visit his estranged father- and then yank the carpet out from under you just as you think you’ve found your footing. The way this film crafts the world around Norval and his father, slowly unveiling things that become weirder and take on more meaning, drags the viewer into that world until they have no chance of escaping and they have to see the journey through to the end.
One of the fun parts of this movie is its approach to violence. The violence is almost all done with pretty great practical effects, and most of those effects are brutally gory, but the way that Norval and some of the other characters react to the violence is hysterical. To make things even better, the violence sort of helps to push the characters together in the long run, and as this movie is really about a man trying to reconnect with his father, I found that the way that aspect of the film worked into the themes of the film was refreshingly original and, again, hilarious.
If I did have to criticize this film a little bit, it would be for the pacing in the first half of the second act. There is an event that alters the course of the film that happens probably twenty minutes into the first act, and after that event there is a period of purgatory wherein Elijah Wood’s character seems uncertain as to what to do. During that time, it feels as if we, the viewers, are just waiting for something to happen. There are some things that happen to build a bit of tension, but really, that section of the film borders on slow and boring. It gets to the point where you are actively anticipating something weird, and just about when I was starting to get impatient, the weirdness ramped up and the movie really took off.
Verdict:
“Come to Daddy” is a heck of a thrill ride. It’s unpredictable and exciting and absolutely hilarious all at the same time. I honestly think this is a film that transcends genre, and it does so in a way that makes me excited to see whatever might come next from Ant Timpson.
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