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HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER Send This Review to a Friend
A sincere, emotional little film from Greece, “Hard Goodbyes: My Father” has pleasing moments in depicting a boy’s attachment to a dad who works hard as a traveling salesman and is absent a good deal of the time. Elias, 10 years old, builds a fantasy world of adoration when his father is killed in an auto accident.
The event shakes up Elias’ life, as well as that of his mother, and leaves him trying to cope based on memories and the dreams they held. Set in 1969, there is a relationship with the moon landing, since father and son had shared interest in the wonders of space.
Director Penny Panayotopoulou works in a delicate, low-key fashion, which gives the film quiet strength not spoiled by histrionics. The performances are convincing, too, with Stelios Mainos as the father, Giorgos Karayannis as the boy, Christos Bougiotas as his down-to-earth older brother and Ioanna Tsirigouli as the bereft mother.
“Hard Goodbyes” is quite moving in its lean, understated way, as we watch a youngster progress to facing the reality against which he fights.
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