If there is one word to describe the indie feature Come to Daddy, then the word is odd. Which makes sense as ever since the movie’s leading man Elijah Wood finished Lord of the Rings, odd projects have sort of been his focus. Odd doesn’t necessarily mean bad or poorly made though. Come to Daddy if anything, is an intriguing movie. It was released in 2019 and for obvious reasons, it was not a big budget studio picture. It’s also not really an arthouse film either, but rest assured, there’s plenty about it that puts itself in its own lane.
Come to Daddy starts as one thing, segues into another, and finishes as something entirely different. It begins with Norval making a trip to meet his estranged father following a letter that he received from him.
Come to Daddy starts as one thing, segues into another, and finishes as something entirely different. It begins with Norval making a trip to meet his estranged father following a letter that he received from him. Norval hasn’t seen his father since he was a child so the invitation to meet is strange, and yet, Norval obliges. When Norval meets his father Brian their initial encounters come with friction. The tension eventually builds and soon, Norval is not sure it was such a great idea to meet his father. The longer things drag on, the more bizarre Come to Daddy gets. Whether or not that was first time director Ant Timpson’s intention is unclear, but whether it was or wasn’t, he and writer Toby Harvard’s collaboration turned out to be a smart pairing.
Most of the plot revolves around Elijah Wood’s character Norval. The rest of the characters, in the least spoiling way of putting it, sort of just seem to come and go. Wood remains, carrying most of the responsibility and with great a disposition. His character goes through many different stages from start to finish. It’s definitely a journey where Wood’s character develops, but it’s likely not one he expected to go on. In a writing sense, Timpson and Harvard are proficient when it comes to dialogue. As strange as their overall format is for this type of work, they wrote the conversations almost as though there’s nothing strange about what’s going on. It almost makes it feel like a black comedy, even though it could almost could be considered a horror flick and definitely at the very least, a thriller. Everything about what they’ve put together looks weird, feels weird, and more or less is weird. It is a ‘weird’, however, that works.
For Timpson’s first time out directing a full feature, it’s clear he wasn’t afraid of approaching this in an unusual way. For Wood it was probably a no brainer getting attached to something like this. Come to Daddy is a movie that has to be seen to be understood, because trying to explain this to people could get tiresome. This is on the upside though, because these types of projects just don’t usually get a greenlight. This speaks to the tastes of modern day audiences when studios are not willing to try them out. Thankfully, it has found a place in Amazon Prime’s library.
