One movie I had been waiting to see for some time, “When Did You Last See Your Father?” is a British movie released onto dvd a couple of weeks ago. It’s the story of a son, Blake Morrison, (played by Colin Firth) who tries to come to understand his relationship with his physician father at the end of his father’s life. His father, played by Jim Broadbent, is dying of cancer. His son tries unsuccessfully to talk and reconcile the anger and the distance between the two men as he looks back over his life.

What struck me was that Blake’s relationship is so similar to so many men’s relationships with their father. Blake’s father never accepted his son’s desire to be a writer, and always encouraged him to pursue a career in his own footsteps as a physician. Blake never felt accepted by his father, and never really knew who his father was, even as he tries to find out near the end of his father’s life.

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