A 2020 film about having a family member with dementia. Written and directed by Viggo Mortensen, who also wrote the score.
John and Sarah's father Willis Peterson (Lance Henriksen) is a bitter old man who is gradually losing his memory. When he visits them in California, he keeps insulting John and John's husband Eric, tells his grandkids inappropriate things, and gets Sarah mixed up with her late mother Gwen (Hannah Gross). After he gets diagnosed with colon cancer, John travels back to his farm in northern New York with him to help him live on his own again.
Provides examples of
- Abusive Parents: Willis was not the nicest father, but judging by his reaction to his own flashbacks, he was much kinder than his own father.
- Actor Allusion: Two scenes are reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings.
- When Willis lies in the snow, Jill's horse Bree comes over to check on him, similar to when Aragorn's horse woke him up on the river bank of Andúin.
- At the end, John kisses Eric like Aragorn kisses Arwen.
- Age-Gap Romance: It's not elaborated on, but Jill is apparently quite a bit younger than Willis.
- Animal Motif:
- Birds for John, who shot a duck at three and became a pilot as an adult.
- Horses for Willis's ex-wives, especially Jill, whose horse is still alive and was kept by Willis after their divorce.
- Badass Boast: Willis insists he's a Viking.
- Big Damn Kiss: Eric and John by the end.
- Calling the Old Man Out: John is patient with his father for a long time, but eventually he snaps and screams at him to get his head out of his ass, listing all the things that are wrong with his personality in the process.
- The Cameo:
- David Cronenberg shows up as Willis's doctor in California.
- Henry Mortensen as the State Trooper who informs Willis of his ex-wife's car accident.
- Central Theme: Can you forgive someone's toxic behavior? Should you?
- Creative Closing Credits: Willis having died, the closing credits have the title run vertically up the screen, as in "falling upwards", with letters made of photos of nature.
- Direct Line to the Author: Mortensen claims that the sequence of a three-year-old John shooting a duck, then treating the dead duck as a pet or teddy bear, is based on an event from when Mortensen himself was three.
- Flashback: Willis has many of these, not only of memorable incidents with his wives and children, but even brief glimpses of past experiences, such as when John pours a glass and he is reminded of a brook, or of sitting in a car while it rained.
- Irony: For a racist, homophobic misogynist like Willis to end up having a gay son, an Asian-American son-in-law, and a daughter is ironic enough, but for his daughter to have two gay and/or gender-non-conforming kids? Priceless.
- Meaningful Name: In a Leaning on the Fourth Wall sense. All the main characters — that is, the family the film is about — bear the surname Peterson. Peter is Viggo Mortensen's middle name.
- Missing Mom: Gwen died while her children were still in school.
- Racist Grandma: A frequent male example. Willis expresses a lot of racist and homophobic views, which hurts his children, but his grandchildren don't seem to take him very seriously.
- A Rare Sentence: Eric is impressed by the absurdity of Willis's expression "All jingle, no bells".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: John gives Willis one after taking his verbal abuse for a long time.John: You've never said "I'm sorry" or "I love you"—
Willis: It goes without saying!
John: No, it doesn't! - Rule of Symbolism:
- The day after John loses his temper with Willis, he leaves the bathtub running and it overflows.
- When John is about to leave for California, Willis watches ducks flying south for the winter.
- Shout-Out:
- Willis is reading "The Last Viking" by Roald Amundssen on the plane.
- Paula wears an X t-shirt. Doubles as a Stealth Pun that Willis talks about his ex-wives during the same dinner.
- Snow Means Death: Willis dies while lying in the snow outside his barn.
- Together in Death: It seems as though Gwen gets this honor, as the last memory Willis sees before he dies is one of her having sex with him.
- Toilet Humor: Willis engages in a lot of this initially. He reassures Monica that everyone pees in their bed, and her father used to shit his for a whole winter of his childhood.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Downplayed, but John does want his father to acknowledge his help, he just know him too well to think he'll get that. In the end, he does get a "you are worthy of helping me, son" when Willis not only takes the blame for the bath overflowing, but accepting help with a word in a Crossword Puzzle from him.
