I must begin by emphasizing that the English title of this film is completely inappropriate. The correct translation of the French title is the imperative- Love Your Father.I think this fact is very key in the director's intention, as the story is really about that construct and not that of the erroneous The Loving Father.
I rarely feel so differently from other IMDb posters as I apparently do on this film. For me, Love Your Father was very realistic in its portrayal of all of the characters and their interactions.The messiness of it all, the many unanswered questions of motivation and action,history and future, were all part of a very realistic believable picture of a highly dysfunctional family.I suspected that the end would not clean up the mess,and it did not. However, I did think that the ferry and Nobel scenes showed that the brother and sister had finally really understood and accepted that they would never get what they had always wanted, and they could move forward as adults.As unexplained as it was, the very end gave me an interpretation of the future for the main character,cleanly echoed in the overlaid words of the Nobel recitation.So I did experience closure.
What I took away from the film is that great artists create and give great art to the world; they are driven to do this; it is not a rational or controllable decision for them. At the same time, they are often incapable of giving great things anywhere else in their lives.Almost invariably , they cannot give friends and family the love those people crave and deserve. So the 'loved ones' suffer immensely. Many other films and books have shown this irony; I thought Love Your Father did a terrific job of exposing it.
