Tom Hanks is America’s Dad at world’s end with a difficult apology

In the fall of 2016, Tom Hanks was dubbed “America’s Dad” by Esquire, confirming a feeling that has been brewing for years. Generations of Americans have grown up watching Tom Hanks, following him from hilarious hijinks (Splash, The ‘Burbs, and Big) to daring dramas (Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Cast Away), to a quartet of Toy Story films and beyond. In the last six years or so, Hanks has found a new groove, confidently making “dad films.”

Almost annually, he headlines a movie that seems designed to predominantly appeal to Boomer dads, either focusing on untold war stories (Bridge of Spies, Greyhound) and noble heroes (Sully, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, The Post) or offering a Western with a softer side (News of the World). His latest initially falls into this cozy niche. Finch features a soundtrack of sentimental instrumentals alongside dad jams like “American Pie,” “Road to Nowhere,” and “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think).” It’s a portrait of fatherhood, centering on a gruff but lovable hero, played by Hanks, of course. However, within this road trip movie, there’s a hard turn that seems to speak to the younger generations that Hanks knows he has helped raise. And in that lies an agonized yet meaningful apology.

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik, Finch is set in a post-apocalyptic America, where a shredded ozone layer makes sunlight instantly skin-scorching. Society has shattered. Deserted major cities are steadily erased by mounting dust pitched by relentless tornadoes. Yet amid the radiation and the devastation rides a man, his dog, and his robot son in a battered RV.

I would follow them anywhere.
Credit: Apple tv+

For 15 years or so, engineer Finch Weinberg (Hanks) has been holed up in solitude, building machines to help him survive at the end of the world. But despite all his engineering, his time is ending. (The blood he keeps coughing up makes that clear.) He needs someone to care for his loyal pet. So, Finch builds a robot boy named Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones in a terrific motion-capture performance), who can talk, reason, and who is desperate to please his pappa Gepetto. Yet, theirs is no fairytale father-son bond. Finch is both impressed and repulsed by the android he’s created in his own image. In teaching Jeff the ways of the ruined world, Finch is mercurial, either scolding or patient. He marvels at the speed at which Jeff is learning to think for himself, but barks at him when they disagree. Then, when he realizes that Jeff was right, Finch crumbles.

Finch is both impressed and repulsed by the android he’s created in his own image.

This resentment stems from the thundering awareness that Jeff will be his heir, his replacement, and his legacy. While Finch might take pride in the genius of his design, he also sees every advancement Jeff makes as a reminder of his own mortality. So, Finch’s journey becomes an allegory of the tension of the generation gap between Boomers — like Hanks — and their children. There is love in the mix, of course. Jeff looks like a clamoring cousin of Chappie. But Landry bleeds tender humanity into him with a voice of whispered wonder and a jaunty physicality. Hanks responds not with the gung-ho energy of Sheriff Woody or the signature warmth that made him America’s Dad. Finch is curmudgeonly and hostile, at one point berating his “son” by yelling, “I know you were born yesterday, but it’s time for you to grow up!”

Caleb Landry Jones and Tom Hanks play an unconventional  father-son duo in “Finch.”
Credit: Apple TV+

Hanks has so often been a source of cinematic comfort as an affable everyman or lovable leader that it smarts to watch him play a belligerent father figure. However, Sapochnik and Hanks use the cultural context of his persona to soften such blows, because you know Finch can’t be all that bad. Not if Tom Hanks is playing him! Such faith will be rewarded.

After some dystopian hijinks, nail-biting action scenes, and plenty of hollering, Finch, Jeff, and the dog will find a metaphorical oasis in their search for a new home. In this safe space, even hardened Finch will let his walls down. And at long last, he’ll express his emotions, his fears, his regrets, his vulnerabilities, and his love. It’s a moment simply staged, but thoughtfully so. A game of catch, so often a cliche of father-son quality time, is redirected to be about teaching Jeff how to play fetch with the dog. That way, someone will know how to play fetch with the dog once Finch is gone. Threaded with a trembling monologue and breathtaking openness, this sequence is positively beautiful, delivering the kind of emotional catharsis many of us crave…and perhaps only Tom Hanks will give us.

No matter what choices you make…death will find you all the same.

In that sequence is the apology. Not a literal one mind you. But, here sits an old man, looking back on his life, his legacy, and the world he’s leaving behind. A stalwart wish for parenthood is that we make the world a better place for our children, so it’ll be easier on them than it was on us. Finch looks out on the radiation-scorched deserts that were once bustling American hubs and knows he’s failed. He has left his children a dying Earth.

It’s impossible not to think of the Climate Crisis, which is a particularly divisive issue between older and younger generations right now. Perhaps Hanks’ casting then isn’t just a clever hook to urge audience patience for Finch’s prickly attitude. Perhaps it is also a lure for all the Boomer dads who look forward to the safe, comforting entertainment Hanks has so long offered. Then in this is an apology to the younger generations, the Jeffs whose earnestness is being regarded with scorn and whose desire for something better is being jeered as unrealistic by their elders. But also herein lies a warning to the Finches out there. No matter what choices you make, no matter how you’ve boxed up your emotions and shoved off your fear of mortality, death will find you all the same. So, before your time is up, what do you have to say to the children that came from you, yet are so different from you that it’s hard to even see how you connect?

On the surface, Finch is a winsomely eccentric science-fiction adventure about a man, his dog, and his son, setting off on a quest for a better tomorrow. Its charming outer shell boasts an amiable A-lister, an engaging robot who is a thrilling spectacle in his visual effects execution, and reaction shots from a dog, who often seems adorably over it. Beneath this is taut familial tension, a gripping fear of mortality, and an ardent plea to not wait until the end of your world to be better. A better man, a better dad, a better hero. In that plea — and in the deeply dad-movie finale of Finch — lies a path of hope.

Finch premieres globally on Apple TV+ Nov. 5.