The Father (2020)

This multi-Oscar-Award-winning film is no-one's idea of a good time but it is so rivetting on account of its being so well-acted and filmed and told, you are not able to take your eyes off it and the sting in the tail of course is that while delivered with thrills of a distinctly Hitchcockian style, these thriller elements are just the trappings of a very real, commonplace, and oh-so-heart-breaking aged-care conundrum and the film cleverly makes you guilty of assuming wrong things about the cantankerous old man Anthony Hopkins plays.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Still Alice (2014)

A 50-year-old Linguistics professor is diagnosed with a hereditary form of Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease in this tearjerker that is as much a character study of the debilitating disease itself as it is a character study of the unfortunate woman, Alice, and her family - of course no-one's idea of a good time but the movie features such a good performance by Julianne Moore you won't be able to take your eyes off it.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

A Separation (Jodaí-e Nadér az Simín) (جدایی نادر از سیمین) (2011)

A man caring for his father with Alzheimers, his wife who wishes to emigrate from Iran, and their daughter whose exam studies are overshadowed by the impossible choice she faces of either staying with her father in Tehran or travelling abroad with her mother, are rocked by an allegation of murder in this rivetting and oh-so-human drama from director Asghar Farhadi who fills his film with individuals close to god but separate from each other.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS