Perhaps when you get together with your friends, you complain about the ordinary frustrations of the day.

Your hairdresser's perfume smells like wet dog. Your co-worker disappears for two hours at lunch without explanation. Your editor takes out a word you think is perfect, just because it doesn't make sense in context.

They're minor annoyances that we all share, and complaining about them to friends makes us feel better. But we don't make movies about them.

"When Did You Last See Your Father?" is a true story, but it is an ordinary one. As a teenager, Blake Morrison was constantly embarrassed by his father, was angry at him and even came to hate him.

It's called adolescence, and most people get over it. But Morrison, a poet, thought his case was unique. So he wrote a book, and the book has been turned into a movie.

The film is heartfelt and marvelously acted. It, too, seems convinced that it has something new and unique to say. Like Morrison thinking he was the first teenager to feel friction with his parents, the movie positions itself as the first to explore a grown son's belated bonding with his father.

It's been done before.

And yet, the filmmaking is exquisite, mostly because of the extraordinary acting. Jim Broadbent, as Arthur Morrison, adds another stunning performance to his storied career. Morrison is a country doctor who, like many men, has trouble telling his son how much he loves and respects him.

Arthur prefers to make jokes and call his son "Fathead," which he thinks is a term of endearment. Like everyone, he presents a more favorable image to others than to his own family.

Arthur does have one major flaw, and it is big enough to justify the movie. But although it is always present, it is mostly kept under the film's surface. Still, it explains why an actress of Juliet Stevenson's caliber was hired to play the mother, and she is superb.

As Blake, Colin Firth is solid enough, but he allows himself to be overshadowed by the powerhouse performances of the actors playing his parents, which is as it should be. Firth's work here is admirably unselfish.

Other than being a bit too much ado about too little, David Nicholls' script is subtle and intelligent, allowing the viewers to understand it for themselves. When we watch the adult Blake subconsciously mirroring some of his father's less-pleasing traits, we recognize what he is doing even though Blake himself does not.

Anand Tucker, whose films include "Hilary and Jackie" and "Shopgirl," directs with a combination of lyricism and British stolidness. The characters are emotionally reserved, and the film reflects that, yet its heart exists in the quiet spaces.

Unfortunately, Tucker is of that generation of directors who insist on keeping the camera in constant motion. It is always panning slowly toward the action or around an obstruction, and the point comes where we just wish he had planted the camera close or away from the obstruction in the first place.

Even so, this movement has a purpose. It is always at a slow and steady rate, which helps set the pace of the film, which in turn helps to set the contemplative mood.

It would be better if it had something meatier to contemplate. But "When Did You Last See Your Father?" manages to be well-made even if it is slight.