I Love My Dad
I Love My Dad
A hopelessly estranged father catfishes his son in an attempt to reconnect.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 7, 2025
I Love My Dad is hysterically funny and, simultaneously, cringey as hell. I mean that in the best possible way. Patton Oswald stars as Chuck semi-estranged father of Franklin (James Morosini), a socially awkward young adult with suicidal tendencies. When Franklin blocks his dad’s phone number and removes him from all social media, Chuck resorts to creating a new fake profile so that he can maintain visibility into his son’s life. But when Franklin reaches out to this “person” the relationship leads down an unexpected path.
I saw this at the North Bend Film Festival and it was introduced as “Catfishing with a tinge of Incest”. An apt description after having seen it. Tried to get my 14 y/o socially awkward son to come watch this with me and for the sake of our relationship, we’re both glad he decided not to come.
This film is so seriously funny, but it also knows enough to lean into the heart when it needs to. It plays out mostly as you would expect—someone’s going to let the catfish out of the bag. Like watching a train wreck, you just can’t turn away. (Except I definitely had to turn away at some points). Patton Oswald is excellent. Morosini, who also wrote and directed here based it on a true story of him and his own father, which only adds a level of cringe to everything. I also want to mention, Rachel Dratch. I thought she was so funny here as Chuck’s girlfriend. She has some really great scenes in a supporting role.
I may be a bit dad biased, but I highly recommend checking it out.