Peep this one cats n’ creeps… our heroine for Fathers, Natalie (Kaiti Wallen/Emilia Wallen in flashbacks) is found wandering ‘round the wicked woods with little memory of where she’s been since being snatched from outside her parent’s pad a decade and a half prior.
With the dodgy details Natalie can provide we begin to learn, via that above mentioned flashback action, that she has been held by a man named Bobby (Harley Wallen, who also wrote and directed the picture at hand), who has convinced Nat that he is indeed her actual father and not ol’ Calvin (Jerry Hayes)… the dude she always believed to be her pappy… and worse than that, that he’s dispatched a squad of folks to steal her back!
Can Natalie be able to discern what is truth and what is bullshit and get her life in order before something dire transpires?
Wallen… Harley that is… weaves a complex and (obviously) non-linear narrative with Fathers.
The flashback element of the story keeps the story real jazzy-like; plenty of jumping back n’ forth between time periods keeps the viewer with their eerie eyeballs glued to the ol’ sinister screen to follow along on the mystery’s twisted journey to completion… well the narrative’s idea of completion.
The cast here is solid, and the fact that Wallen uses his family (and himself) as performers in his productions isn’t just nepo nonsense as one may expect; rather, the family has talent and it’s compelling to see the endearing performance of Emilia contrasted with the more jaded version of Natalie Kaiti portrays… and Jack-of-All-Trades Harley (ahh, the joys of independent film-making folks… yours cruelly knows it well) plays a compelling kidnapper while juggling many, many tasks on the production.
I could go on, but I think the most vital thing to say is: I’m not generally a thriller kinda guy, but Fathers kept my arcane ass enraptured enough to see the yarn through it’s dark progression.
