The Son Review: An Emotionally Manipulative Family Drama

Son wants you to feel things, namely regret, heartbreak, sadness and helplessness. Despite some very talented players, Son 's biggest emotion was disappointment. The film evokes such reactions not only because of its deeply flawed storytelling, but also because of the many easily avoidable creative mistakes the filmmakers make in its brutal 123-minute running time.

Even worse, there's no reason to jump into The Son knowing it's going to be completely honest manipulative drama. In 2020, director Florian Zeller made a better film with Der Vater, which, like Der Sohn , was an adaptation of Zeller's play and also explored a similar story of family feuds. Unfortunately, every misstep Zeller could have made in The Father was made up for in The Son , resulting in a film that is nothing but deeply disturbing.

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To Zeller's credit, The Son doesn't strive for a cinematic feel like many previous stage-to-screen adaptations. Although most of the film takes place in a New York apartment, Zeller and cinematographer Ben Smithard manage to spread the space out so that The Son's scope never feels theatrically limited. Zeller takes full advantage of its central location from the film's opening scene, when the remarried Peter (Hugh Jackman) and his second wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) receive an unannounced visit. his ex-wife Kate (Laura Dern).

The conversation that follows effectively establishes the tension and story between Beth, Peter, and Kate while also briefly shaping the story of The Son . Kate is forced to turn to Pete for help with her teenage son Nicholas (Jane McGrath), whose opposition to his mother and tendency to drop out have grown too strong for Kate to handle on her own. In response, Peter visits his son and refuses to let Nicholas stay with him, Beth, and their newborn son. For most of its 123-minute run, The Son follows Peter as he tries unsuccessfully to reconnect with his eldest son and, more importantly, as he refuses to acknowledge the depth of Nikola's depression.

Although the story is simple, The Son struggles to maintain a sense of pace or suspense throughout the first and second acts, which are not only repetitive but often feature lengthy passages that stand out. While the film's dialogue occasionally manages to capture a sense of raw naturalness, it often suffers from slang. The characters in The Seme often insult one another, for example creating an unintentional cold distance between characters who don't feel the need to speak too formally. .

© Digital Trends courtesy of Rekha Garton/Sony Pictures Classics

Most of the actors in the film deal with The Son 's quirks quite well. Hugh Jackman in particular gives another deeply moving performance as Peter, a man whose guilt and pride blind him to the complexities of his son's depression. Laura Dern also shines as Kate, a woman whose kindness and warmth can sometimes be marred by a sense of abandonment due to the departure of her husband and son. Jackman and Dern didn't share many scenes in The Son , but the film usually works better when they're on screen together.

Vanessa Kirby and Jane McGrath didn't get along throughout The Son . While Kirby's talent was well established by this point, he was more or less tied to a role in Boy that felt guaranteed. McGrath, on the other hand, was given the difficult task of playing a character who, thanks to the screenplay by Zeller and Christopher Hampton, oscillates between a hopeless or emotionally empty spirit. As a result, McGrath's performance falls flat, undermining many of The Son 's great emotional moments.

Unfortunately, none of these mistakes come close to the severity of Zeller's mistake in The Son's third round. Instead of relying on the dramatic power of the film story, Zeller uses an emotionally manipulative exchange that removes Son 's previously created weight. Ultimately, the film is less an exploration of complex issues and more a light-hearted exercise in misery; that he expects his audience to sympathize with his subject, since he uses every cheap trick to attract his audience. honesty with them.

Not only does Son put himself in the same emotional space as his characters, he fails, even worse, to really feel their emotions.

The Son hits theaters nationwide on Friday, January 20th.

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