Film Reviews

In My Father's Den

• Rating:
• Director: Brad McGann.
• Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Emily Barclay, Jodie Rimmer, Colin Moy.
• Details: New Zealand / 128 mins (15s).

Pulitzer Prize-nominated war photographer Paul Prior (MacFadyen) returns home to New Zealand for his father's funeral after 17 years away and stays to mend fences with his estranged brother Andrew (Moy) and catch up with his old girlfriend Jackie (Rimmer). Befriended by Jackie's teenager daughter Celia (Barclay), who wants to be a journalist, Paul soon comes to believe that Celia is his daughter. In trying to make up for all the lost years, Paul kicks over a hornet's nest that finally culminates in a horrific tragedy. A powerful, gripping drama directed with subtlety and restraint by Brad McGann (who also adapted Maurice Gee's novel for the screenplay), In My Father's Den is a meticulously crafted tale. New Zealand looks simultaneously bleak and craggily beautiful, a combination also found in MacFadyen's portrayal of a cynical photographer who has seen one too many atrocities but still can't shut down his instinctive eye for detail. In telling the story using a repetitively looping narrative, and overlaying layers of unobtrusive imagery much like a landscape painter building a swash, McGann has blended a conventional thriller-style who-dunnit with arthouse sensibilities, drawing from MacFadyen and Barclay a wonderfully articulate two-hander in the process. A film that will repay repeated viewings, In My Father's Den also benefits from a superb sound recording by editor and adr recordist Richard Flynn and Nick Foley respectively, while the combination of Dame Kiri Te Kawana and Patti Smith on the soundtrack is deployed to devastating effect. All in all, a cinema lover's treat.

Review by Declan Burke