The Son

I'll address the first thing that I see on the negative reviews: Zen McGrath as Nicholas does not "sell" it. I thought the same thing as I was watching the movie, he never brought me in, he was hard to read, he had a smirk that threw me off, a little smile that was hard to decipher, he seemed sarcastic and out of it, I never felt his pain... but after days of thinking about this film this is what I realized:

Teenage kids are hard to read.

That is the whole point.

I am a parent of a 15 year old boy and this movie shook me to my core. It really did. The parents couldn't read the boy (much like I feel most of the time), they went with what they saw from him and trusted that gut feeling vs what professionals were telling them, they trusted the memories they had as though those represented who the boy was now, they trusted their own desire for things to normalize, they trusted the good moments, they went with the unmistakable desire that "things will be ok". They let those desires take the wheel.

This is Hugh Jackman's best performance to date as a parent desperate for things to be ok as he dealt with his own issues of being a son himself, he wanted to avoid being a monster... not realizing that being a friend wasn't the solution.

X.

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.

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 actually really liked this movie. I believe it tells a good story about family as their son struggles with a mental illness. The biggest problem with this movie is that some of its line deliveries come off as weird and unnatural. Also there is a scene that is mentioned but we do not actually see it. This movie is not an easy watch. The movie gets to be very heavy at certain moments. Even with all of those problems the movie is carried by a great performance by Huge Jackman and Lora Dern. This movie gives great insight into what it is like to be battle with a mental illness. Some people may not like this as much as me, but this is a really good movie.

The script seemed choppy and not believable, especially in the beginning; I had that feeling where you're acutely aware that they are actors doing a scene. More importantly, the film needed a much, much better actor to play Nicholas, someone who could do the role greater justice especially with Hugh Jackman as the lead. The film did touch on some very important themes including the pain and mourning that can come from divorce, especially for children, and also of course the difficulty of trying to understand and help a loved one with depression. The film felt a little long and drawn out, but had a very emotional and impactful ending that made it worth it.