''How I Killed My Father'' (french: Comment j'ai tué mon père) is a 2001 French

thriller drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-ge ...

directed by

Anne Fontaine Anne Fontaine (born Anne-Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc; 15 July 1959) is a Luxembourger film director, screenwriter, and former actress. She lives and works in France. Life and career Born Anne-Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc in Luxembourg, sister of actor Je ...

Plot

Jean-Luc, an established gerontologist, has not had any contact with his father, Maurice, for many years and thinks he is dead. Jean-Luc lost touch when his father left his family to work as a physician in Africa. Without notice, the father reappears. He is bankrupt and moves into his son's home for several days. He annoys Jean-Luc with compliments that sound like accusations. Or is it Jean-Luc that always hears irony? His wife likes the senior immediately, and even Jean-Luc's younger brother accepts him. Jean-Luc would like to kill his father but...

Cast

Charles Berling Charles Berling (born 30 April 1958) is a French actor, director and screenwriter. Life and career Charles Berling, son of a navy doctor, is also the nephew of the literary critic Raymond Picard. His mother, Nadia, "only daughter of (French) se ...

as Jean-Luc *

Michel Bouquet Michel Bouquet (6 November 1925 – 13 April 2022) was a French stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1947 to 2020. He won the Best Actor European Film Award for '' Toto the Hero'' in 1991 and two Best Actor Césars fo ...

as Maurice *

Natacha Régnier Nathalie "Natacha" Régnier (born 11 April 1974) is a Belgian actress. She received a Cannes Film Festival Award, a European Film Award, and a César Award for her role in the 1998 film ''The Dreamlife of Angels''. Régnier is the first Belgia ...

as Isa * Stéphane Guillon as Patrick *

Amira Casar Amira Casar is a British-born actress who grew up in England, Ireland, and France. Early life Amira is the daughter of a Kurds, Kurdish father and a Russian mother. She was born in London and was subsequently raised in England, Ireland, and Fran ...

as Myriem *

Hubert Koundé Hubert Koundé (born December 30, 1970) is a French actor and film director. Koundé is best known for his role as Hubert in the film ''La Haine'' by Mathieu Kassovitz. Background Koundé spent his childhood between Benin and France, where he was ...

as Jean-Toussaint *

Karole Rocher Karole Rocher (born 4 July 1974) is a French actress best known for her role as Roxane Delgado in the French TV series ''Braquo''. Life and career Karole Rocher grew up in Sartrouville, outside Paris, with her father and spent her summers with h ...

as Laetitia *

François Berléand François Berléand (; born 22 April 1952) is a French actor. He plays Gilles Triquet, the officer manager and equivalent of David Brent in ''Le Bureau'', the French version of ''The Office'', produced by Canal+. He also appeared in the 2002 fil ...

as The patient

Reception

The

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Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported that 89% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "''How I Killed My Father'' is a penetrating character study of father-son ties". On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Elvis Mitchell Elvis Mitchell (born December 6, 1958) is an American film critic, host of the public radio show ''The Treatment'', and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'', the ''LA Weekly ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said that " he film is akind of murder mystery, but eventually the only victim is the audience's interest -- the picture is uncompromising and inauspicious". Lisa Schwarzbaum of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' commented that " e script is a steady accretion of small stabs to the heart, propelling the gorgeous performances of Berling, Regnier, and especially the 76-year-old French cinema veteran Bouquet, whose every faint smile is killing".

Ty Burr Ty Burr (born August 17, 1957) is an American film critic, columnist, and author who currently writes a film and popular culture newsletter "Ty Burr's Watchlist" on Substack. Burr previously served as film critic at ''The Boston Globe'' for two ...

of ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' wrote "Hushed but scalpel-sharp drama, a

ilm Ilm or ILM may refer to: Acronyms * Identity Lifecycle Manager, a Microsoft Server Product * ''I Love Money,'' a TV show on VH1 * Independent Loading Mechanism, a mounting system for CPU sockets * Industrial Light & Magic, an American motion pic ...

that'll probably send men in the audience home much quieter than they arrived".

References

External links

* {{Anne Fontaine 2001 thriller drama films French thriller drama films Films directed by Anne Fontaine Films scored by Jocelyn Pook 2000s French-language films 2000s French films