My Father's Guests

spoil alerts: I guess i must be the only one who saw this movie beyond the immigrate and social class issues that the film talks about. I am talking about the many psychological points that i thought the director covered here.

It felt to me that the director's intent was to to show how the children have tried to impress their dad all their lives so much that they are unable to know who they are and when a stranger comes to take that love from their dad, they feel cheated. It is very cleverly explaining that one must never try to be someone else for the sake of someone else's love. Or you will lose your own self.

As for the dad, he is perceived as someone selfless. Because he has been an activist all his life. But he has been a selfish parent all his life. And the director here i think wants to question the notion of selfishness and selflessness.

In psychology, we now start to realize that people who have been social activists for example but have often left their children on their own, were not really aware that they were subconsciously not willing to commit to a family of their own ( often due to their own unresolved childhood issues) and they tried to escape it by throwing themselves in their careers.

Finally i think it questioned the motive of the dad that throws himself in a relation with a person that has 3 times his age. A man who has it all intellectually but seemingly feels very poor in terms of love. The love that his children has for him, does not seem to be of value to him.

He only cares for this young person's love. And it asks the question has this man loved with his heart and flesh at all? or was it enough? The fact that he can't stop himself from throwing all he has for this young woman shows how desperate he is to be loved for being just a simple man with manhood needs.

It also explores the sexual needs of a man at a certain age and how it is viewed by his own children. I thought it has an excellent movie that had many depths and is extremely well thought out and put together, touching many sensitive subjects without judging them.