Saturday 3 June 2023

The Son (2022 Florian Zeller & co-scr)

"Love isn't enough."

Well, Zeller wrote the play, but the screenplay had a contribution from Christopher Hampton - maybe the trick ending? (He did something similar in Atonement if I remember correctly.)

Divorced mum Laura Dern can't handle teenaged son, played rather confusingly by Felix and Max Goddard, so he goes to live with Dad Hugh Jackman and new wife Vanessa Kirby and baby - and they can't handle him either. When he attempts suicide, the doctor (Hugh Quarshie) begs the parents to keep him in the psychiatric hospital but they take him home - where he promptly successfully kills himself with a hunting rifle the father has stupidly not removed.

It's a nuanced work - a brief meeting with father Anthony Hopkins reveals him to be an utter bastard, so Jackman's made a better life than he did, despite some failings. It's a well caught drama about the unreachability of troubled teenagers who feel they can't handle the weight of the world.


Photographed by Ben Smithard, music by Hans Zimmer, edited by Yorgos Lamprinos (Oscar and BAFTA nominated for The Father).

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