A Loving Father

Gerard Depardieu has just won the Nobel Prize for literature. (I know, it’s hard to swallow, but what the hell). On his way to Stockholm on a motorcycle he gets into an accident, is kidnapped by his son, played by Depardieu’s real son. The son is an ex-junkie, and blames Dad, as all junkies blame somebody else. Dad was a real prick, no doubt, and still is, if you believe that fatherhood is the best and most important thing a man can do, which I don’t. (A good thing, since I was a rotten father.) Dad complains that his family smothers him. Okay, he’s a self-centered monster, and I’m sure it’s tough to be the child of a really great artist or statesman or whatever … but get over it! The son’s entire life revolves around licking the wounds inflicted on him as a child, and although his childhood wasn’t very nice, plenty of others have had much worse. I wasn’t very taken with this dysfunctional family, and the movie ends in some incomprehensible mess of symbolism.