The Son – A Great Cast Saving A Manipulative Script

For our earlier review of The Son from TIFF 2022, click here.

The Son is Florian Zeller’s sophomore feature following his Oscar-winning directorial debut The Father. The film follows Peter (Jackman) whose busy life with his new partner Beth (Kirby) and their baby is thrown into disarray when his ex-wife Kate (Dern) shows up at their door asking for help with their son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) who suffers from severe depression. Nicholas quickly moves in with his father as the film then sees Peter trying to understand his son’s illness and doing everything, he can to help him get better. The film was predicted to be a major awards player before its premiere due to its stacked cast, powerful subject matter, and the award-winning filmmaker behind it, but its chances quickly dwindled after it ran the festival circuit, receiving a divisive response from critics and audiences alike. It is undeniably a big step down from Zeller’s previous film and it’s very easy to understand why it rubbed some audiences the wrong way but nonetheless, it is still a powerful drama that doesn’t quite deserve the level of negativity it got thrown its way.

Jackman has been turning in great performances for the past several decades and is never afraid to show off his range by taking on several vastly different roles. That being said, his role here still ranks up there with some of the best work of his career in spite of some rough lines of dialogue he’s forced to deliver. Jackman delivers a heartbreaking performance as Peter as he does an excellent job at portraying his struggle as a father constantly trying to support his son and failing to understand his illness while audiences watch his life slowly fall apart. The cast is easily the best part of the film with the reliable Dern and Kirby providing strong supporting turns. Meanwhile, the film also sees Zeller reunite with Anthony Hopkins in an albeit brief but still pivotal scene where his presence can be felt throughout as he of course dominates the screen and makes the most out of his short screen time.

However, the most common gripe against the film (and it’s a big one) has been McGrath performance as the titular character, one that will either make or break the film. Unfortunately, his performance is very mixed but he’s not completely terrible, doing the best he can in certain moments in spite of how Nicholas was written. He works more effectively in the film’s quieter and more subdued scenes but even then, it feels like he’s playing the character the complete wrong way, or just wasn’t directed properly. It’s the louder and showier scenes where his lack of emotional range is the most evident which sadly makes a lot of the third act not nearly as effective as it could have been. It also doesn’t help that he’s working with an A-list cast who overshadow him at every turn.

The script doesn’t do this film any favors either as it tries too hard to elicit emotion out of the audience every chance it can despite it not always feeling earned or necessary. There are several extremely powerful and effective moments over the course of the film that will inevitably stick with audiences but there’s an equal number of scenes that feel emotionally hollow or completely manipulative as a result of that script. Some of the dialogue doesn’t feel natural either to the point that the actors can at times struggle to deliver it convincingly, especially Dern who suffered the most from this. As the film reach the end, it is at its most manipulative and sometimes incomprehensible as it is easy to see why so many were bothered or left movie theatres.

While The Son doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the brilliance of The Father or do nearly as good of a job of putting audiences inside the mind of someone and those around them affected by mental illness, it is still a film worth checking out if only for them to form their own opinions. Due to some sensitive subject matter, it might be a good to know what audiences are going into ahead of time because of its emotionally devastating and draining nature. In the end, the good thankfully outweighs the bad. There’s a better film in here desperately trying to get out but the occasional flash makes it worthy enough of a recommendation.

still courtesy of Elevation Pictures

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/