Jack Murphy5 said:Whether he was slapped by himself, a nurse, someone else entirely, or if it even happened at all... it’s pretty hard to say.
Maybe Anthony is giving us his performance of a lifetime here, similar to what he did in 'The Remains of the Day'.
Spoiler alert
It's a phenomenal movie with top-tier acting, centered around a really straightforward story told through the eyes of an elderly man struggling with dementia.
I guess the implication in the film is that Anthony was being slapped by his daughter's ex-husband. Even though the movie intentionally confuses the audience in a few different ways, you can basically piece it together. Anthony, who is sick and dealing with dementia (likely Alzheimer, though they don't explicitly say so), lived alone in his apartment near his daughter. She visited him regularly and hired nurses—though she probably cycled through a few since the old man would constantly argue with them or accuse them of stealing things. As his condition worsened and after another "incident" with a nurse, the daughter decides it's best for him to move in with her and her husband because he clearly can't handle living alone anymore. Her husband, to put it mildly, wasn't thrilled about this; he lacked any empathy for the old man and was actually quite rude to him, which is where the abuse and slapping come into play. After a while, the daughter gets divorced (we can assume her husband's behavior played a part in that) and ends up living with her father again with the help of those hired caregivers. While the film is shot in a way that makes everything feel like it's happening over just a couple of days, I think the implication is that this all unfolded over several years—the husband mentions being married for ten years in one scene, and later the daughter mentions being divorced for five. Eventually, the daughter meets a new guy and moves away to live in Paris, leaving her father in an assisted living facility. The end.
At its core, it's a very simple story, but it doesn't follow a classic linear path. Instead, we're presented with a collection of memory fragments from the old man's perspective. At first glance, it feels like everything is happening within a few days, but they're actually snapshots from different periods of his life, spaced years apart. Also, seeing the same actors playing different characters really drives home how he can no longer recognize his own family or even people from his daily life. That's what leads to the real twist: there actually isn't a twist. The movie starts out feeling like some Hitchcockian thriller full of suspenseful turns, but it's really just a deeply emotional drama about the reality of aging and dementia.
Kudos to everyone involved in this production, especially Anthony Hopkins, who absolutely deserved an Oscar, and Olivia Colman too. This film is proof that you don't need a massive budget, huge locations, fancy sets, or special effects to make something great. Just a handful of incredible actors and a very simple story told in a really creative way.