Truly Dreadful Film

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Adapted from a radio play – not very much ! – this entirely stage set domestic drama has the actors doing monologues and sotto voce to the non – existent audience.It follows the domestic travails of a family, including the birth of a child at their house, the woman the wife of a particularly annoying Richard Attenborough, and a "dreadful situation" between a beatnik fiancée and his girlfriend's younger sister and her callow witless boyfriend. There are also a couple of love intrigues and an old man with an amazingly dull "radio" voice. Sidney James has a brief cameo as a cabby.

"Father's Doing Fine" ReviewMarch 23, 2012Lady Buckering, who has four daughters, is in bad financial straits but nonetheless lives very well – there's a butler, all the women have wonderful clothes, there's a private nurse and plenty of liquor handy. One of her daughters is about to have a baby (the father is the Attenborough character, Dougall), one is married to a pseudo-intellectual, one is rebounding from a love affair gone bad and the youngest daughter is an insufferable drama queen. Attenborough plays the stereotypically nervous father-to-be with gusto."Father's Doing Fine" is based on the play "Little Lambs Eat Ivy." I simply do not understand the significance of the title (yes, I know the song Mairzy Doats). The movie's title seems off kilter as well since it is the mother, Lady Buckering, around whom all the frenetic doings occur. Indeed, Lady Buckering (the delightful Heather Thatcher) has all the best lines in this farce. For me, farce is always better as a stage production than as a movie. This movie is silly but Thatcher's and Attenborough's performances make it fun to watch.