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Arthur Morrison (Jim Broadbent) and his wife Kim (Juliet Stevenson) are GPs in the same medical practice in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. They have two children, Gillian (Claire Skinner) and her older brother Blake (Colin Firth), from whose perspective the story is told. Blake is 40, married with two children, an established author, and having to face the fact that his father is terminally ill.
The film opens during a summer bank holiday family trip in the late 1950s. Arthur hits the hard shoulder to skip a long queue of traffic at a car racing event, and eight-year-old Blake and the rest of the family are crippled with embarrassment. It’s the first of many flashbacks that illustrate Arthur’s bluff attitude to life and his pride in getting something for nothing. In the present it becomes clear that Arthur still dominates his grown-up son, a dynamic to which Blake is resigned, much to his wife Kathy’s (Gina McKee) annoyance. And When Did You Last See Your Father? is an unflinching exploration of a father/son relationship. Blake’s memories of everything funny, embarrassing and upsetting about his childhood and teens are interspersed with tender and heartrending scenes in the present, as he struggles to come to terms with his father, their history of conflict, and learns to accept that one’s parents are not always accountable to their children. And When Did You Last See Your Father? will be on general release across Ireland on October 5. This sneak preview is courtesy of Buena Vista International (Ireland).