Serious family drama

‘And When Did You Last See Your Father’
Director: Anand Tucker
Cast: Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, Matthew Beard, Gina McKee
Rating: PG-13
Grade: 3 Globes

REVIEW. There are times when Colin Firth’s relentless frowning works quite well — any time he plays a character with the last name “Darcy,” for instance. Then there are times when it doesn’t. “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” is one of those latter times.

Like his co-star Jim Broadbent, Firth is easy to watch — which is odd, as he often plays characters who act as if they just sat on a tack in the middle of a party and can’t get up to deal with the situation.

Firth plays Blake, a moderately successful writer in England who comes home to be at his father’s (Broadbent’s) bedside as the old man battles cancer. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Dad was no saint, and that really sticks in Blake’s craw.

The fault though for this unenthusiastic response to “Father” is not all with Firth and Broadbent, who were just doing their jobs (Firth to sniff at things, Broadbent to ham it up). It lies with writer David Nichols and director Anand Tucker, who adapted Blake Morrison’s memoir into an uninspired melodrama that makes the last scene of “Field of Dreams” look emotionally reserved. As Broadbent’s character dies, the stages of Blake’s experiences become as easy to anticipate as the stages of grief. It’s not that anything in “Father” is that badly done. It’s just that so little about it feels original.