Florian zeller

The Forest is the latest thriller from the French dramatist Florian Zeller, translated by Oscar winner Christopher Hampton. It’s a well-worn yarn of adultery, betrayal and vengeance set among the yuppie classes. The action is located in France but the actors speak in Home Counties accents. (In theory, at least. Some are better at imitating BBC newsreaders than others.) Zeller makes his story deliberately arty and obscure. Man 1, also known as Pierre, is a wealthy doctor whose wife, or ‘The Wife’, is played by Gina McKee. Pierre has a hysterical girlfriend, known as ‘The Girlfriend’, who threatens to reveal their affair and destroy Pierre’s marriage. The Girlfriend dies bloodily

The Father is an immensely powerful film about dementia starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in his bed in Wales when his Best Actor Oscar was announced, so we’ll never know if his outfit would have been a hit or a miss. Shall we give him the benefit of the doubt and say ‘hit’? Either way, he is absolutely remarkable here. I read the screenplay, available online, out of curiosity, and what he brings to the words on the page is beyond and beyond and beyond. Hopkins has played King Lear (twice) but this is his real King Lear. What Hopkins brings to the words on the page is