Father's Day
2023 · 13m · USA
Directed by Kali Kahn
Genres: coming-of-age, dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic, tender
A teenage girl plans to spend Father's Day at the pool with her dad, but when an attractive young woman arrives poolside, she watches her father's attention shift — and in a single afternoon, irreversibly stops seeing him as a hero and begins to see him as a man with desires of his own.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Near-wordless poolside observation of a daughter watching her dad ogle a stranger. Aftersun-coded, Letterboxd-bait — the restraint could be exquisite or merely empty. I'll lean toward empty.
Near-wordless poolside observation of the precise moment a daughter's idealized father shatters — Kahn locates a Lucrecia Martel-adjacent register of patient looking. The Aftersun comparison is earned by ambition if not yet by execution.
13-minute near-wordless poolside observation of the precise moment a daughter stops seeing her father as a hero — Aftersun comp is earned by the structural restraint alone. Tori Lemelin's performance carries everything in a piece this dialogue-light.
Reviews
Kahn captures, with great sensibility, the moment when a teenage girl stops seeing her father as just that, and starts to also see him as a man.
Expertly captures the questionable conduct of men and the guilt felt when one woman betrays another in subtly authentic ways.
Festivals
- Miami Film Festival 2023
- River Run International Film Festival 2023