Throughout her fascinating drama that she adapted from her own semi-autobiographical novel, My Father Is an Airplane (Dutch: Mijn vader is een vliegtuig), director Antoinette Beumer tells quite a captivating story about the relationship between a daughter and her father, especially in the days after the death of another family member (specifically their mother and ex-wife respectively) which puts them into direct contact once again, forcing them to revisit the traumas of the past and hopefully work towards a resolution that can allow them to rekindle a formerly strong relationship. A brutally honest and often quite unnerving psychological drama that seeks to venture deep into the heart of a broken relationship between a woman trying to make the best out of a difficult situation, and her frail father whose dementia causes his memories to fade at an alarming pace, this film is extremely difficult to watch, but the director ensures that every moment feels absolutely genuine, drawing from her own experiences as she explores the dynamic between these two individuals, who prove to be some of the most fascinating characters of the past year, the complexity with which they are developed immediately making My Father Is an Airplane an essential piece of remarkable acting. Filled with strong emotions and a meaningful story that carries a stark message, this film is consistently accomplishing the most simple but effective of intentions in looking at a narrative that many can relate to in some way.

Trauma is a common subject in art, with many works finding creative ways to break our hearts as they explore the various kinds of challenges those who experience traumatic incidents tend to endure. Beumer’s novel and eventual film joins this lineage of heartbreaking stories, looking at how an already-broken young woman deals with the sudden death of a mother, focusing on the immediate days following this tragedy, and the various characters who weave in and out of her life, some of them there to help her, others proving to be much more of an obstacle to her wellbeing. Throughout the duration of My Father Is an Airplane, Beumer dips in and out of the past, using the structure of the film to present the inner life of Eva, whose mental instability means she is haunted by memories of the past, but fails to differentiate between what is real, and what is the conjecture of her over-active, trauma-induced psychological state. Like many films that tread through similar thematic material, My Father Is an Airplane combines memory with trauma, proving how they are both interwoven, and the ways in which they can become even more intense when one encounters another enormously harrowing situation. If there is a clear message to this film, it would be that trauma is not linear – it’s a series of moments, whether waking flashbacks or resting terrors, that can haunt someone for their entire life, and throughout the film, the director constantly provokes some deep conversations relating to the main character’s frequent attempts to rid herself of these terrible memories, since they tend to be extremely oppressive to her mental health, squandering any chance she has of leading a normal, happy life with her loving family.

The two central roles in My Father Is an Airplane are occupied by Elise Schaap and Pierre Bokma, two very gifted actors who interpret Beumer’s complex characters beautifully. Considering the heart of this film was dependent on the relationship between a father and his daughter, it was imperative that the actors charged with taking on these roles did so with precision and a sense of authenticity. Schaap in particular had the biggest challenge, since not only was she playing a character inspired by the director herself (which is already an enormous request to ask of even the most gifted actors), but she had to run the gamut of emotions, playing Eva as an ordinary woman whose life slowly spirals out of control, but who still possesses some degree of pride, and therefore has to hide her excruciating psychological pain behind a happy veneer. Beneath the consistently strong exterior, there is a performance that pulsates with fury and heartache, her performance being a perfect example of what a strong actor can do with the right blend of a good character and a fierce conviction to bring them to the screen in a way that is both memorable and respectful. Bokma, a veteran Dutch actor, plays the titular father, a man slowly fading away as a result of his dementia, which has caused him to lose most of his memories, in particular those that relate to his now-deceased ex-wife, whose recent death is cause for his daughter to try and uncover answers to the burning questions have continued to plague her. Bokma doesn’t have a character that would be necessarily easy to play either – he has to taken on the role of an invalid who has only brief moments of lucidity, and whose presence is both a blessing and curse to his daughter, who struggles to see beyond the fact that her beloved father is a shadow of who he used to be. The actor makes the most of his time on screen, and even when most of the work is done by Schaap in her capacity of being a reactionary character to his increasingly disturbing actions, Bokma is still very impressive, and matches the tone of this film.

My Father Is an Airplane is a film that frequently focuses on themes much deeper than the father-daughter dynamic that is suggested at the outset. This is the heart of the film, but it doesn’t restrict itself to this particular theme. Ultimately, this is a harrowing psychological thriller disguised as a heartbreaking social drama about family, Beumer working tirelessly to oscillate between the conventions of both genres, with her careful curation of a number of poignant ideas being the root of a very complex and insightful story. There is a mystery at the heart of the film, where the main character finds her efforts to unearth deep family secrets perpetually dissipating with every new encounter with her father, whose belligerent inability to offer any solutions, whether it be his failure to remember most of the important details, or the outright refusal to disclose the ones that he does. The film is designed to be shrouded in mystery – how else can one explain the abundance of peculiar moments that transpire between this mentally-unstable woman and her rapidly-deteriorating father? There is a clear sense of refusal to reveal everything until the very end, which results in a climax that is both shocking and deeply moving, the core of the broken relationship between these two people finally being made clear. Even when she’s answering these questions, Beumer manages to keep everything quite enthralling, never revealing too much about what is clearly a very personal story to her, and allowing the material to speak for itself, which turns into this hauntingly beautiful human odyssey.

Undeniably, My Father Is an Airplane is a difficult film to watch. Beumer does not hesitate from going into detail about the extent to which someone can experience the most dreadful kind of trauma imaginable, especially when it comes to one’s relationship with their family. Throughout this film, she is provoking a series of very deep conversations about identity in relation to familial secrets, and how the misdeeds of the past can eventually catch up to someone the longer they hold onto it. The film is a fascinating character study with a lot of interesting ideas, and an even more exhilarating sense of humanity that is embedded in every frame. It can often be a brutal experience, and the director is not against infusing the story with some very challenging conversations – it all ultimately becomes a deep and disquieting exploration of family, taken from the perspective of someone who is continuously looking to the past as a way of resolving the debilitating sense of dread she feels in her everyday life. It’s harsh, bleak and often quite disturbing, especially in the moments where we’re privy to the inner psychological workings of the main character – but it makes a profound impact, and frequently moves in and out of reality, presenting us with a disconcerting but nonetheless beautiful depiction of the human mind, taken from the perspective of someone desperately trying to hold onto whatever fragments of the past she can, in the hopes that by looking backwards, she can find the answers that will help make her forthcoming life all the more bearable.