The Son

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.

My 17 year old done committed suicide 3 years ago. The storyline matches my experience almost exactly. Although I'm hard working, not all hard working fathers are from wealthy backgrounds or high powered jobs. Suicide can happen to any family. The exasperation depicted by the parents was spot on. Hugh Jackman's character tried kind dad, understanding dad, hard dad etc. As I did (with help from parental counselling). I saw bad reviews of the sons acting. Totally disagree - he said little, went for long walks, avoided school in exactly the same way my son did and he totally looked the part. The story was very well researched. The doctors line "sometimes love is not enough" said much. The son pleading to leave hospital was him pleading to die. The happiness in the moments before suicide was the happiness of escaping pain. I've seen it. Mental health remains so poorly understood, and it likely always will. But the signs of suicide I've since learnt can follow a pattern. The film captures it all. Top marks for having the courage to make this film and for sure it's not for everyone. Finally, I saw a review saying Jackman's character was failing badly as a father. I've talked now to many people whose family had experienced suicide. And all did their best. I'd stick up for all of them.

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.

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.

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.