'The Son' Review: Hugh Jackman is devastating in this flawed, gut-wrenching portrait of depression
In 2020, filmmaker Florian Zeller stunned the world with a heartwrenching movie, titled 'The Father', about a man living with dementia and trying to make sense of his changing circumstances. Anthony Hopkins gave a stellar performance and went on to win his second Oscar in the Best Actor category. The 2020 film was based on one of Zeller's plays. Two years later, the director is back with another movie and it's based on one of his plays as well. However, his second project is more straightforward storytelling and doesn't have the shape-shifting quality of his previous project.
Titled 'The Son', the movie is the second in the planned trilogy of movies dealing with various aspects of mental illness and mental health.The film sees Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern playing Peter and Kate, the divorced parents of troubled teenager Nicholas. Peter has moved on in his life and has a baby with his new wife, Beth (Vanessa Kirby). Nicholas hasn't been feeling right after the divorce and starts skipping school by walking aimlessly around the city while Kate finds herself drenched in work. So, Nicholas meets his father and tells him that he wants to live with him because he knows that his condition will be better if he's with his father. But it's going to be a tough change, especially for Beth, because their family was about to add a new member who basically doesn't like her very much.
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Peter is adamant that he wants Nicholas to live with him so that he can be a good father to his child and give him everything that he wants and not abandon him. As they try to start a new phase of their lives, a lot of things take place that make Peter understand how one of his mistakes might have made things worse for his child.
'The Son' is quite similar to 'The Father', and also more conventional. In Zeller's first movie, we got to know about the experiences that Anthony Hopkins's character had in detail. Meanwhile, in 'The Son', we get to see Nicholas' failing mental health from the outside and we struggle to grasp, like his parents, why he is behaving that way. Only Nicholas knows why he's in so much pain and what is causing all of this. The movie is not just about mental health issues, it also talks about parenting and how parents take stupid decisions sometimes in their lives. Let's not judge Peter and Kate because it has happened to everyone.
The best part of the movie is that Zeller doesn't try to offer an explanation about Nicholas' mental illness, which feels like a more honest approach to depicting a mental illness that can be bitterly mysterious in nature. Although he keeps on giving us hints about what may have caused it.
As far as acting is concerned, Jackman gives a stellar performance and takes the movie to a whole new level. He is touted as one of the frontrunners for next year's Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards and has a fairly good chance to win the trophy. It's his film and he has shown why he is one of the finest actors of this generation. Meanwhile, Laura Dern and Vanessa Kirby are brilliant throughout the movie.
However, it was Zen McGrath who had the tough job of giving a performance that would easily connect with the audiences and make them understand how depression can take you to weird places. The young actor has done a terrific job and surely deserves all the recognition.
As a whole, 'The Son' is not as good as 'The Father', but it manages to create an atmosphere where Peter's family's tragedy becomes our own and we tend to think about the warning signs that we have been ignoring in our lives as well.
It is a heartwrenching depiction of depression that makes viewers sympathise with the character.
However, it's flawed and fails to reach the level of Zeller's first movie 'The Father'.