User Reviews

I, too, saw Father Figures, and I'm as appalled with the opinions being expressed by the "reviewers" who came before me as I was with the behaviour and attitudes of Dale.

People, (spoiler alert) Girlie was 16 when they met!!! SIXTEEN!!!! What part of this are you NOT understanding, unless you somehow, someway approve of this yourself (I can see no other rationale for the vitriol that is being directed toward April on this site).

Was the movie a tough watch? Unquestionably. Was it well-crafted and compelling? Again, unquestionably. But I find it simply appalling that the likes of the previous reviewers are passing judgment on April without having experienced what she experienced in discovering exactly what her father was up to.

Everybody knows these kinds of relationships between old men and young Asians is taking place, but until you see a movie such as Father Figures, you don't get a sense of the human tragedy and heartbreak it will inevitably cause. This was an important piece of film-making, to illustrate what Dale has done (and, quite likely, continues to do) to his daughter.

Relationships are not that simple. Love is not just an altruistic thing something in a happy Hollywood romantic comedy. We all get something out of it, for some it's romance, for others, it Is stability or companionship. Relationships are complex and not just the stuff of a Hallmark card. Both Dale and Girlie each got something from it - he, some care and affection and companionship, she received stability. And I think she genuinely cared for him. However, the reality of this movie is that it was all about the film maker - the daughter - her anger at seeing her father was all related to her own emotions of feeling betrayed by him and never having a proper relationship with him. And this self indulgence is really what the movie is all about - her own issues. Its moral judgments and understanding of love are way too simplistic.

I think that Dale and Girlie both enrich each others lives in some way and it is not for us to fully comprehend how. I think he is genuinely trying to better her life and almost be the father figure to Girlie, by buying her things and giving her educational help - and perhaps make up for being a bad father to his own kid. And i think that's what the film maker sees and somehow resents.

Life for young girls in very poor countries is very hard - at best they often end up in some big factory making goods for the west and sending the money home and working long arduous hours in a production line. Now that's exploitative in every respect. And its like that everywhere in Asia - people working long and hard and staying poor making our iPhones, fashion brands and other capitalist must haves. Dale rescues her from possibly ending up like that or staying poor. And she rescues him from the loneliness of old age in western societies, where in the rush to make money, families are often fractured and old people left alone while the kids chase fame and fortune. Even if that means exploiting your own father in the process. An interesting film, but self-indulgently moralistic, and hurtful to those exploited by it. That's the real exploitation of this movie - not Dale and not Girlie.

It's not a bad movie for such a low budget and for anyone who's ever been to SE Asia, it will ring the familiar bells of moral dilemmas one faces when choosing to interfere in the lives of people there. Dale is a creep, no doubt, but is it really so wrong and unexpected for a 75-year old guy, who never achieved anything of note in his life, to lie to his fiancée about having been a millionaire? Or to have sex with the girl for that matter. The age of consent in The Phillipines is 12 years and Girlie is a very convincing 24-year old. If sex was OK 5 minutes ago, when April thought she was 24, how can it become so very inappropriate when she turns out to be 17 and 3/4? Would it be OK again 2 months later when she turned 18?

It's painful to watch at times, no one likes to see adolescent girls essentially sold to old white men, but non-European cultures look at relationships in a much more transactional way, much more so than we did before the idea of forever lasting romantic love took over. Girlie's family really does live, as April puts it, a step away from hunger, there's no dignity in being poor and hungry and having a white husband in the family, albeit old, really is a status symbol among the poor and uneducated Filipinos, Thais or Khmer.

They are naive, obviously, there are few white knights in shining armor in the slums and villages of SE Asia, but if it makes life better for two people, even if only for a while, what moral right does anyone saying what's right and what isn't, let alone forcing his or her views on them.

Yes, the exploiting was being done by this filmmaker who has some really complicated daddy issues. In the beginning she appeared to trying to keep an open mind and do a proper documentary film; however, it quickly disintegrated in that she completely lost sight of her subject, lost any semblance of objectivity, and turned the whole film around to be all about her and her rage and resentment about her dad not being what her fantasy of a dad should be.

Her father had found the possibility of having happiness and a loving family for the last few years of his life (he was in bad shape, so it won't be that long) in the Philipines and she did everything she could to ruin that. The filmmaker showed us the grinding poverty the young bride came from, she showed us how much nicer the girl's life was with Dale, she showed us how the whole family had embraced her dad and cared for him, and made sure he was taking his meds properly, grooming and eating properly. In return Girlie got to live in a much nicer place, enjoy a few luxuries she had never before known and further her education. Everyone seemed happy with the arrangement. April appeared to be extremely jealous and perhaps worried that her dad would not have anything left to leave her as an inheritance. We got to see how Dale lived back home in Kamloops - all alone in a mess in an awful house with no one to care for him. April certainly wasn't stepping forward to enrich his life and admitted that she didn't have much contact with him there. So anyone given the choice would rather have a higher standard of living in a nice climate in a large loving family with a young woman adoring him than live all alone and sick in crappy house in the cold of Canada, of course. She said she couldn't afford to help him, yet had manicures, expensive camera equipment and clothing and was able to travel extensively, even bringing her daughter along.

The filmmaker showed no respect for her subjects, including things that he had asked she omit, not taking the camera off Girlie when she asked her to in Hong Kong when the poor girl was crying and April continued to harass her, and even showed a lack of respect for the law by filming in a government building in Hong Kong which had a sign posted prohibiting photography inside!!!!!! You didn't even have to be able to read the language to understand it because it was a camera with a red circle around it and a line through it!!!!

April was only concerned about her own feelings about what was going on. She would rather her dad die sick and alone than happily in the Philipines, just so that her judgemental, moralistic views could be satisfied. Honey, it didn't happen in Canada. The rest of the world is not living our privileged existence and have to do things differently. Maybe Girlie would like to have a manicure and camera like you have and take for granted. April resented that her dad was giving those things to Girlie instead of her. She wanted her dad to love her, but how can you love someone who is so nasty and disrespectful? You at least owe your dad respect just because he is your dad, and if you're not loving to him, why do you think he should be loving to you? You could at least wish your dad a bit of happiness at the end of his life. Not everything is about You, April.

I was glad when Dale finally stood up, took off the microphone and walked away. He had tolerated an awful lot from April, and had even left his beautiful wife to meet her in Bali and she didn't appreciate the effort he made at all. He thought she had come to reconcile. She just wanted to dictate how he should live his life and yell at him. She wanted him to live in lonely misery and Girlie to go back to her horrible poverty. What a pathetic person.

The film was totally engaging - a train wreck you can't take your eyes off. Thought-provoking. Yes, April, it is too bad that situations like that exist. It's not just sad for the young women, as April seems to think (exploitation and all that), but also for the lonely old men. Too bad their families don't take care of them.