AllMovie

Three generations of a working-class family are confronted with the economic decline of their hometown in this neorealistic drama from England. The mine that employed most of the residents of a village in the North of England has been closed, and while many have packed up and moved on to communities with a more stable economic climate, some refuse to leave behind the town that has been their lifelong home. Forty-year-old Joe Elliott (Joe Armstrong), who once performed in the mining company's brass band, has long had a stormy relationship with his father Arthur (Ned Kelly), who thinks little of his son's natural gift for music. Joe has inherited Arthur's shortcomings as a husband and father, and as Joe and his wife find themselves going through a stormy breakup, his ten-year-old son Michael (Jonathan Dent) feels as if he's caught in the middle of their constant squabbling. Like Father was produced, directed, written, edited, and photographed by the Amber Production Team, a seven-person filmmaking collective. Incidentally, Joe Armstrong composed the brass band piece he helps to perform in the film.