El hijo

The Son is every parent's nightmare. Reminiscent of Birth in the way the uncanny permeates every frame and implants a creeping sense of foreboding under your skin. Vanessa Kirby as Beth is the most relatable character, as she seems as confused by Nicholas as the audience. Hugh Jackman nails it as the father trying to do the right thing and slowly realising that there are some things that are just beyond our control. Zen McGrath is naturalistic as Nicholas, allowing the actions to speak for themselves and calibrating perfectly a performance it would be easy to over-egg. There is something stagey about the production, a nod to the play origins, and done deliberately one feels, as it adds to the sense of unreal events overtaking characters. My favourite moment was when the parents leave the hospital having made one decision, only for the next cut to show they reversed it. A harrowing film that will hopefully start important conversations for some people.

Just a bit of research into the works of writer, playwright, director Florian Zeller gave me the information that the he has made a trilogy namely " The mother" ( stage play) a decade back and two movies " The father " and " The son" recently. While I have not seen the play, I found "The father" an excellent movie embellished with the outstanding performance of Sir Anthony Hopkins for which he got the much deserved Oscar award. This movie too is first rate ( but not without its flaws) and has some good acting of Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern with a bonus of a cameo of Anthony Hopkins as the grandfather. Some critics and reviewers have said unkind words about this movie since they found it too bleak and schmaltzy and have also criticized the acting. Not fair really because the subject demanded sentimentality, poignancy and pensiveness. The main characters are the father ( Hugh), the ex wife ( Laura Dern), their 17 year old son ( Zen McGrath) and the present wife ( Venessa Kirby). The son is traumatized by his parent's divorce, he is in acute depression and moves in to live with the father but he is not able to stabilise causing misery to all. He blames his father for divorcing his mom.

Director Florian builds up a charged atmosphere with some heart wrenching scenes as the parents try to get the son to normalise and fit in the family. Those familiar with or knowledgeable on mental health issues may find fault with some points of the narrative specially the apparent inaction by the parents on a few obvious red flags. While most scenes are moving, some may find them cringe worthy and off putting. Actingwise Hugh has put up a good performance showing a father's remorse and guilt. Laura is good as usual and on familiar turf as the distraught mother, a role she has done earlier. Teenager Zen has done well considering his age and experience. I thought he projected the pain, confusion, distress and bitterness very well. There is a beautifully crafted and enacted scene between Hugh and Anthony Hopkins as father and son. The background music enhances the dramatic effect.

It felt personal somehow, when thinking of myself in all their places. It is so hard and devastating. I sometimes see that look in my father's eyes, and sometimes in my mother's or my sister's, sometimes I have these mixed feelings and the deep conviction that I don't desire to keep on living, but I don't know how anyone else can survive this, anyone else that's similar to Nicholas. Such a real and painful movie. I don't know why it touched me so deep, and why it made me cry so hard, it felt too personal. And it makes you think, what can anyone do really? What can we do, and is it anyone's fault?

Whether or not this is about behavior, due to some degree of mental illness, both parents and step-mother, especially the father, seem completely out of touch with their son's very real and obvious psychiatric and emotional problems to the degree of appearing themselves part of the problem, if not even the trigger of the escalation.

But I am not sure what the movie was telling us? Somewhere between script, direction and editing the whole thing got either diluted to indecisiveness of message, or confusion about the moral we were supposed to walk away with.

Even the actors seemed confused as to how they were supposed to deliver their parts.

It could be argued that real life is like that, but I've had 64 years of it and I would disagree.

The kid had real psychiatric issues and he was even explaining them to his parents, who were competitive go-getters by nature and they seemed to be in total denial of their son's reality.

I think the movie was a good idea badly executed.

I don't know much about depression but I do know how people react to it if someone close to them have it. Florian Zeller may not have presented how accurate acute depression is but his depiction of characters around a person suffering from it is near perfect.

The Son works for me more than The Father because it relies very little on subtext and the story is out there in the open. Hugh Jackman gives his career best performance as a role of a successful person but an absent father. There are criticisms of how the movie does not empathize with Nicholos but I didn't feel it that way. I felt it was rather accurate because of how less most of us understand what depression is actually is. Most of the times, people think "it's just in your head" or "move forward" are actual solutions to depression.

The scene where Hugh Jackman fights with his son was spectacular and shows us how much we are like our dads. Hopkins appears in just one scene but that single scene shows the irony of Jackman's character. The ending was absolutely devastating and very brave. The Son is one of the very films which worked very well for me despite it's not so favourable general public reception.