The Son (2022) Movie Review
The Son is director and writer Florian Zeller’s follow up to The Father (2020) which starred Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. The Father was a poignant story about family dynamics as Hopkins’ character suffers from dementia and his daughter grapples with how to take care of him. The Son attempts to do the same deep dive on family struggles, but is much less effective.
Peter (Hugh Jackman) is a successful businessman with hopes of making it to D.C. to run political campaigns. He has a new baby at home with his wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) and his life seems idyllic. That is until his ex-wife, Kate (Laura Dern), shows up at his house and relays that his son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) is going through a difficult time and wants to come live with him. It isn’t immediately clear what is wrong with Nicholas but slowly we learn he is struggling with severe depression and Peter is ill equipped to deal with it. This puts a strain on Peter’s relationship with Beth and Kate as they try to navigate a son who can’t quite explain what’s wrong.
The story isn’t a new one. Generational trauma, in particular the pain inflicted upon sons by their fathers, due to the problems of a patriarchal society is a tale as old as time. We see a glimpse of it on display when Peter visits his father (Anthony Hopkins) and his father tells him to “fucking get over it” as they’re discussing some of the more unsavory moments of Peter’s childhood. This type of ‘suck it up and move along’ attitude is adopted by Peter to deal with Nicholas and the results, as you can imagine, are disastrous.
Unlike with The Father, this dialogue heavy story dances around its issues of mental health and relationships instead of attacking them head on. The dialogue itself feels a little cheesy at times and would have felt even more hokey if not for Dern, Kirby, and Jackman’s stellar acting performances. Hopkins only has a few minutes of screen time, but as usual he is dynamite. Zeller misses out on the chance to truly explore depression and the effects it can have on relationships and connect it to the broader theme of father and son relationships.
The acting, especially Jackman’s and McGrath’s, feels a little over the top bordering on melodrama. Instead of embracing the melodrama schtick as Todd Haynes does in Far From Heaven (2002), Zeller doesn’t actually commit and it leaves viewers lost somewhere in the middle. A not so subtle conversation about halfway through, telegraphs what will happen in the end so you’re forced to muddle through the last half of the movie with this knowledge. Not to mention shots of a washing machine spinning clothes constantly provide reminders of the conversation (you’ll get it when you see the movie). With overt mentions like this, it leaves little to the imagination and succumbs to the telling rather than showing mistake that many films make.
While The Son is not as good as The Father, the movie is saved somewhat by the performances of an amazing cast. But you’ll be left a bit disappointed by the lack of depth of a topic that really deserves to be explored.
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You like melodramas
2. You like familial dramas
3. You want to see Hugh Jackman in nice suits
