Flag Day

Sean Penn returns to the director’s chair with a true-life crime drama starring his daughter Dylan.

When the actor Sean Penn made his fifth feature as a director – 2016’s The Last Face – it bombed both critically and commercially. Doubtless in directing again in Flag Day – and this time acting in it too – he was hoping that he would regain the credit he received for his earlier directorial endeavours, not least for The Pledge (2001) and Into the Wild (2007). But, if some critics have indeed praised Flag Day, rather more of the reviewers to date have been hostile and some of them deeply so. Given its outright dismissal in certain quarters (the film only now comes to the UK but it was released in America in August 2021 following a screening at the Cannes Film Festival), it proves to be a better movie than I had expected but certainly not one to rank with Penn’s best as director.

Based on Jennifer Vogel’s memoir about her father entitled Flim Flam Man, Flag Day is an interesting study centred on a kind of relationship rarely portrayed on screen. The story, aptly enough in view of its source, is told from the viewpoint of Jennifer played by Dylan Penn as an adult and earlier by first Addison Tymec and then by Jadyn Rylee. Footage of childhood memories establishes how the young Jennifer came to regard her father John (Sean Penn's role) as a bright light in her life. He might frequently be away from home but when he turned up he was an exciting presence and someone who exemplified a free lifestyle. In pointed contrast Jennifer's mother, Patty (Katheryn Winnick), was an alcoholic who largely failed to take care of her children (Jennifer has a younger brother, Nick, portrayed in the film’s second half by Sean Penn’s son, Hopper Jack Penn).

This portrayal of John Vogel as an enticing figure is presented in a narrative made up of flashbacks in the sense that Flag Day starts in 1992 and is presented from that viewpoint. Accordingly, we know at the outset that the father is a counterfeiter who will come to a bad end and Jennifer’s voice-over comments confirm that he was a con-man and a liar. That truth is set against the memory of his early appeal for her, an attraction understandable for two reasons. First, her response to him arose when she was too young to understand his serious failings and, secondly, because John Vogel although always wanting to avoid responsibility for his children was nevertheless a man who loved them. The film follows through to cover Jennifer's teenage years and her subsequent career as a journalist and thus to show how she came to see through her father but yet retained something of her initial feelings for him.

As a family drama that puts the focus on this relationship, Flag Day is adroitly balanced and well-acted (Sean Penn’s casting of his children is not to be dismissed as mere self-indulgence and Dylan Penn, daughter of Robin Wright, is up to her key role). The directorial approach features a consistent use of soundtrack songs (a number of them acting as commentary and specifically composed for the film) and it proves adept even if the screenplay by the established team of Jez and John-Henry Butterworth fails to capture the full poignancy and irony of the close central relationship. Especially in the final scenes the film falls short. That's because of some ill-judged visuals which seem unpersuasive for what is intended to be live TV news footage and because the tone ultimately becomes too lenient towards John Vogel even if one allows for the impact of a father's death. If part of the intention was to show him as an essentially tragic figure in spite of his behaviour then that is one of the aspects which the writing fails to deliver fully. Some viewers may also lament such players as Josh Brolin, Dale Dickey, Regina King and our own Eddie Marsan being used so briefly. So, yes, Flag Day could have been a better film, but I don't see it as disastrously bad as some have suggested and the subject matter is unusual enough to hold the viewer throughout.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Dylan Penn, Sean Penn, Katheryn Winnick, Hopper Jack Penn, Bailey Noble, Norbert Leo Butz, Josh Brolin, Dale Dickey, Regina King, Eddie Marsan, James Russo, Jadyn Rylee, Addison Tymec, Beckam Crawford, Cole Flynn.

Dir Sean Penn, Pro William Horberg, John Kilik and Fernando Sulichin, Screenplay Jez and John-Henry Butterworth from the memoir by Jennifer Vogel, Ph Daniel Moder, Pro Des Craig Sandells, Ed Michelle Tesoro and Valdís Óskarsdóttir, Music Joseph Vitarelli, Costumes Patricia J. Henderson.

Conqueror Productions/Olive Hill Media/Wonderful Films-Vertigo Releasing.
109 mins. USA/UK/Canada. 2021. US Rel: 21 August 2021. UK Rel: 28 January 2022. Cert. 15.