‘Father’ Venice Review: A Harrowing Slovak Drama of Love, Loss, and Guilt

The situation is unimaginable, terrible—worse than anything seen in a horror film. And it takes time to arrive. In the nerve-racking, unsettling, drawn-out opening of Father, everything appears to follow the rhythms of everyday life. Shot—like much of the film—in a single extended take, the action begins with Michal (Milan Ondrík) training on the streets, returning home, greeting his wife Zuzka (Dominika Morávková) and their young daughter, showering, and getting ready for work. That morning, however, he has to drop his little girl at daycare. Michal goes through the motions with a smile: he leaves home, gets to the office, deals with the pressure there—management wants to downsize—takes phone calls, sends emails, and so on. Until he gets a worried call from his wife, asking if their daughter is with him. She isn’t, of course—he left her at daycare. Wait. Did he?

Father even toys with the viewer’s own memory: we’ve been following his every move, and we, too, begin to doubt. Michal trembles. He realizes the unthinkable may have happened: his daughter still strapped into her car seat, left inside the car for hours on a scorching day. He runs down, only to discover the worst. The world as it was vanishes—first for Michal, then for Zuzka. There seems no way out of personal collapse, the unraveling of their marriage, and perhaps even darker consequences. Not even learning that what happened is linked to a relatively common neurological condition, known as “Forgotten Baby Syndrome,” offers any comfort. How does one live with the weight of such an act?

The story was inspired by a real incident that happened to a friend of co-writer Dušan Budzak. Slovak director Tereza Nvotová takes that event and builds from it a visceral, immersive exploration, filmed almost in real time. Later, the pace widens, but the narrative device of long unbroken takes confines the story to a handful of scenes over a relatively short span. The following day. The recriminations. The shockwaves through family and friends. The harassment by the press. And the inevitable police case.

With the camera often pressed close to the actors’ faces—most of all Michal’s—the film plunges the viewer into this personal hell. Both characters can rationally accept that the tragedy was not caused by negligence but by the disorientation of disrupted routines, the so-called “autopilot” state. But that doesn’t make it easier to endure. Even the possibility of prison barely registers with Michal: to him, life seems to have lost its meaning both inside and outside confinement. Or is there still a way back?

The intensity of the film’s staging and its emotional closeness to its characters are its greatest strengths, making Father an often overwhelming, sometimes extraordinary experience. Where Nvotová falters—at least from my perspective—is in the conclusion. Without spoiling specifics, the final 15 to 20 minutes feel forced, out of tune with what came before, and cruel in a way that seems unnecessary. It’s true this is a story with no easy resolution—perhaps no resolution at all—but the director attempts a “magic trick” to tie everything into a perfect circle, and that effort becomes a trap. Still, despite that misstep, Father is a film that lingers in memory long after it ends.