with Alan Berliner

Documentarian Alan Berliner’s father Oscar is the reluctant subject of his simultaneously funniest and saddest film. In an attempt to understand himself and where he comes from, Alan questions his father about his life, about his family history, and about his divorce from Alan’s mother, but the old curmudgeon will have none of it. He insists that his life is ordinary, unimportant, and can see no value in the project. Hilariously cranky, Oscar resists his son’s effort with colorful language. Like boxers sparring in a ring (a metaphor Berliner illustrates with stock footage), Alan keeps swinging away and eventually the past is brought to light in this loving but combative father-son dialogue.