While fathers usually guide their sons through life crises, things go the other way around in this independent comedy-drama from Turkey. Adnan (Reha Özcan) has been a widower for nearly five years, but he acts as if his wife passed only a few weeks ago; he's been trapped in a deep funk for years and has become emotionally unavailable to his teenage son Burak (Kamer Celenk). Adnan doesn't fare much better with the rest of the world, and a long series of screw-ups leads to him losing his job as a parking lot attendant and being named in a lawsuit. While Burak has already moved out of the house and is living with sympathetic relatives, he decides he needs his father back and sets out to free Adnan from his doldrums, though that's more easily said than done
Acting
Reha Özcan's crumpled, lived-in grief is devastatingly real
Writing
Role reversal feels earned, not gimmicky
Director
Theron Patterson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rare Turkish indie to get Western distribution in 2009, part of a slow wave of Anatolian arthouse cinema breaking out of festival circuits.
Director Theron Patterson is American-born but built his career in Istanbul; this was his second feature shot entirely in Turkish.
TR
