Movie Review: The Son

 

Michael's Movie Grade: F

A miserable movie that leaves you wondering just who this was intended for in the first place. 

I was hoping that this film would be for depression, what director/co-writer Florian Zeller's previous film, The Father was for dementia. That movie helped us see the world through the eyes of someone with dementia and come out with a better understanding of it, making it still well worth watching even as it delved into a depressing subject matter. Unfortunately, this film lacks any of this depth and gives us little understanding of these characters. Because of this what we are left with is a depressing dirge of a movie that's only impact on its audience is making them feel worse than when they came in. I would hate to think of someone who struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts or someone who knows someone who struggles with this, watching this movie because the whole film feels hopeless and bleak. Yet the sadness that this movie will make you feel does not come from the filmmaking and storytelling but rather from subject matter. A teenager going through depression and suicidal thoughts will always be depressing and make us want to cry. That is because we are human beings and not monsters. Yet just because a depressing subject matter makes us feel sad, does not mean a movie did its job well. The fact of the matter is the storytelling here is horrible. The characters all come across as complete stereotypes with nothing interesting or engaging about them. These characters never feel real to us and often times it is hard to relate to or understand them. Again unlike The Father, which brought us into the mind of the main character, here by the end of the film we don't have any more understanding of who these characters are than we did just a few minutes into the movie. The storyline also suffers from clunky exposition and terrible dialogue. The dialogue never once feels like how people actually talk and this too often simply takes us out of the movie. This becomes an especially major fault because this film tries to feel very realistic and true to life. This movie was based off a stage play (with the same name) by Florian Zeller, who also directed and co-wrote the film and its stage play origins feel too obvious. This feels much more like a filmed stage play than a movie for much of the runtime, especially when the characters do much monologuing. You can see the monologues working better on the stage but in a movie, they simply feel out of place and clumsy. 

This film does have a top-notch cast that includes Hugh Jackman, Vanessa Kirby, Laura Dern and Anthony Hopkins. These are great actors who all give great performances that are wasted on such a miserable film.

I was left wondering at many times, just who this movie's audience would be. It obviously isn't for people who suffer from depression or know and love those who do, because it would offer no comfort or help. It is not for the average movie-goer who wouldn't want to see a movie about such a depressing subject. It isn't for those who want a character study, because there is little depth to these characters. It isn't for those who want something thought-provoking because it says nothing that pretty much anyone doesn't already know. Looking at the reviews it is getting, it is definitely not for film critics. So this becomes one of those rare movies that I cannot picture anyone actually liking.