Our Top Five Movie Dads
1. Atticus Finch, Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird
When I’m in the doghouse, my partner chides for me for not “being more like Simon”, a friend of ours that, in my better half’s eyes at least, can do no wrong. He’s calmer, more assured and is generous in all the good ways. I’d hate him if he wasn’t such a good bloke.
But as perfect as Simon is, he’s not as perfect as Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch, the warm, morally-watertight leading man in the movie adaptation to Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Finch has been making dads look bad since 1962 with a firm but fair approach to parenthood, a gentlemanly respect for every person, regardless of colour, and, as a lawyer, a rare ability to calmly navigate societal turbulence. He looms larger than life through the eyes of young Scout, but this is testimony to Peck’s warm and authoritative acting and a clean, waste-not-a-word script.
When in doubt, modern dad, use Finch as the litmus test: “How would Atticus go about this?”
The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
Great List! I would add Will Smith’s character in Pursuit of Happiness.