Page Text: Stranger Suggests at #SIFF2022: I Love My Dad 🐱🐟
by Jas Keimig • Thursday at 5:00 pm
It's SIFF season on Slog, baby! Seattle's favorite film fest returns this month with 262 films over 11 days (April 14–24), screening in-person and online. We're rounding up some of our top picks to celebrate. You can check out all of them here and see what's up this week at the fest over here .
USA, 2022, 90 min, Dir. James Morosini
Taking the phrase "I love my dad" to an entirely different level. Courtesy of SIFF
What would you do to reconnect with your son? Call him every day to check in? Send him money? Pose as a hot girl on the internet and unintentionally become his online girlfriend, winning his trust in the most fucked up way possible? I Love My Dad boldly tries to answer that question. Patton Oswalt plays Chuck, a schlubby divorced dad whose son, Franklin (writer and director James Morosini), just returned home from a psychiatric hospital after trying to commit suicide. Franklin has blocked Chuck on all his social media platforms, digitally forming a boundary between his father and himself. Desperate to reconnect, Chuck catfishes his son by pretending to be "Becca," a hot and sexy fake-person whom lonely Franklin immediately falls for. Somewhat incredibly, the movie is based on the true story of Morosini's real-life father catfishing him—the film even opens with the line, "The following actually happened. My dad asked me to tell you it didn’t." A touching mix of comedy and drama, I Love My Dad took home the Jury and Audience Awards in the Narrative Feature Competition at the 2022 SXSW film festival. This strange-but-sweet family dramedy should be on your list.
I Love My Dad screens at SIFF Uptown on Friday, April 22, and Saturday, April 23.