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Mad Dad

A warm, wry, bittersweet excavation of a larger-than-life father, mixing laughter and ache as old footage and letters slowly reveal a complicated man.

Directed by
Rupert Russell
Genres
Documentary
Overview
Rupert Russell sets out on a tragicomic journey to discover who his enigmatic father Ken really was: the dad and the director, the art and the artist, the myth and the man, the accolades and the absurdity. Unseen family archives, hundreds of personal letters, thousands of photographs, and several home movies – not to mention Russell senior’s own autobiographical docudrama 'A British Picture', in which Ken played his own antagonists and Rupert, aged four, played the young Ken.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
Directed by
Rupert Russell
Genres
Documentary
In your watch list

How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
    Pacing
    measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
    Attention
    engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
    Themes
    • family
    • memory
    • art
    • identity
    • grief
    Places
    • home
    Era
    contemporary
    Audience
    adult
    Form
    • documentary
    • true story
    • nonlinear
    Content intensity
    • Gore none
    • Language mild
    • Violence mild
    • Sex mild
    All scales, 0 to 10
    Scales, 0 to 10
    ScaleValue0 to 10
    Action1
    Horror1
    Humour5
    Realism9
    Romance2
    Tension3
    Darkness5
    Complexity6
    Emotional weight7

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    Cast

    Where to watch in the UK

    No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

    Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

    Details

    Genres
    documentary
    Directed by
    Rupert Russell
    Starring
    Rupert Russell, Ken Russell, Steven Soderbergh, Pete Townshend, Ann-Margret, Guillermo del Toro, Kathleen Turner, Twiggy
    Country
    United Kingdom, United States of America, South Africa
    Languages
    English

    TMDB