Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Florian Zeller
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Anthony
Hopkins, Zen McGrath, Hugh Quashie
Writer/director Florian Zeller recently drew much acclaim for his
deft screen adaptation of his stage play
The Father, which nabbed an Oscar for its titular star Anthony Hopkins and a
Best Adapted Screenplay award for Zeller and co-writer
Christopher Hampton. The Father was part of a trilogy
of plays, which also included The Mother and
The Son. Zeller now brings the latter to the screen, with Hopkins returning for
a small role, but the results are far less successful.
The title refers both to mentally troubled 17-year-old Nicholas (Zen McGrath) and his estranged father, New York lawyer Peter (Hugh Jackman),
who has Daddy issues of his own thanks to mistreatment by his wealthy
father (Hopkins). When Peter receives a visit from his distraught ex-wife
Kate (Laura Dern), he agrees to take Nicholas off her hands. It
seems the boy hasn't gone to school for a month, spending his days
wandering around the city instead, and he confesses to Peter that he feels
eternally miserable. Peter moves Nicholas into the apartment he shares
with his new wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) and their newborn son.
Possibly the worst thing for a person who feels they have nothing to live
for is to spend time around someone who has everything to live for. Rich,
handsome and successful, Peter just can't understand why his son might be
miserable. He reassures Kate and Beth that Nicholas's issues are just "a
phase," that they might even be a symptom of "girl troubles." Every time
Nicholas attempts to open up his father unwittingly shuts him down. We see
a mirror of this when Peter visits his own father, who advises him to
simply "get over" the contempt he holds towards him for walking out on his
mother while she was ill. Unlike his father, Peter isn't a monster, but he
is ignorant to the troubles of others, which might make him more
harmful.
I had noticed The Son's low Rotten Tomatoes score prior to my screening, and for most of its
run time I was wondering why the critics had taken against Zeller's film.
Sure, there are some baffling logic gaps, like how Nicholas's schools
never bother to pick up a phone to tell his parents he's gone AWOL, but
it's an engaging enough family drama snapped out of the
Ordinary People mould. Plus it features a remarkable
performance from Jackman. There's always something affecting about
song-and-dance man down on their luck (think Fred Astaire in
The Bandwagon or even Gene Kelly in Xanadu), and Zeller has the good sense to exploit Jackman's dance moves in one
of the film's lighter moments. A song and a dance might make you smile for
its duration, but once the music stops reality returns. Peter finds,
possibly for the first time in his life, that he's facing a problem he
can't charm his way out of, an idea that Jackman thoroughly sells. Dern
does some fine work here also. In recent years she's played a lot of tough
cookies, which makes it all the harder to watch her crumble here as a
mother who finds that sometimes love just isn't enough.
With The Father, Zeller used various cinematic techniques to put us in the
dementia-riddled head of its title character, but there's no such
inventiveness employed here. Zeller never puts us in Nicholas's head, and
even if the title actually refers to Peter instead, we're left to coldly
observe his actions (or inactions). Zeller's direction of
The Father went a long way to engendering audience empathy
for a character who may not have entirely deserved it, but the most he can
muster for Nicholas is sympathy. Zeller seemed to understand dementia, but
is as baffled by depression as Peter appears to be.
It's in the movie's final act that the whole endeavour falls apart.
Zeller asks us to go along with a scenario that is so contrived it's
impossible to accept, and pulls off one of the cringiest firings of
Chekhov's gun imaginable. There's almost something treacherous about how
Zeller decides to wrap things up, treating both his characters and the
audience with misanthropic contempt. Jackman and Dern's good work is
ultimately undone by a writer/director who seems to understand his
characters less than the actors playing them. For a less disingenuous
version of this sort of thing, you can check out Xavier Dolan's
Mommy
or Joachim Trier's
Louder Than Bombs, but Jackman and Dern do such good work here that
The Son is worth a watch, even if it will leave a sour taste
in your mouth.
The Son is on Prime Video UK now.
