I don’t think Florian
Zeller expected his film adaptation of The Father to be so successful.
Sure he had the prestige writing partnership of Christopher Hampton and a cast
led by great talents like Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. But it’s a small
movie, confined to a fairly simple setting, and though it incorporates some vivid
technical proficiency, it’s not flashy at all in this. I suspect the enormous
acclaim came as a shock, to say nothing of the Oscar wins for his and Hampton’s
screenplay and Hopkins’ devastating performance. But he welcomed it, and on
winning his Oscar confirmed that he was working on an adaptation of his
spiritual sequel play The Son (for whatever reason passing over The
Mother which was produced between the two). Like The Father, The
Son is a family drama that explores a relationship tested by a severe
ailment. Unlike The Father though, it is not in any way interesting.
A film much more
expensive and straightforward in its’ artistic approach, The Son
revolves around the depression and suicidal tendencies of a teen called
Nicholas (Zen McGrath), sent from the home of his burnt-out artist mother Kate
(Laura Dern) to live with his Manhattan businessman dad Peter (Hugh Jackman),
who has just had a child with Beth (Vanessa Kirby), the younger woman he left
Kate for and which is implied to be the source of Nicholas’ trauma.
Essentially, the film follows Peter’s attempts to reconnect with Nicholas and
steer him away from his deceptive and self-destructive impulses.
Once again, Zeller is
exploring some intensely difficult subject matter within the frame of this family
drama -arguably more materially upsetting than the focus of The Father.
And yet it’s nowhere near as heavy, in part because unlike that film -which was
so unique and fascinating for choosing the perspective of the man suffering-
here it is filtered through the point-of-view of the father witnessing (or
hearing about) his son’s problems. And that’s nowhere near as compelling. The
plot invests so much in Peter’s character that it can’t deliver on, his
ambitions to join a political campaign -sidetracked by his needing to care for
his son; happy flashbacks to a holiday years prior when he and Kate and
Nicholas were together. But then the movie never reckons with the impact of his
relationship with Beth -we know the effect it had on Nicholas, an implied
effect it had on Kate, but there’s no reflection on Peter’s part. On the one
hand, Peter is under no obligation to explain himself and his choices here,
some years after the break-up took place -he and Beth appear to have a very
healthy relationship, as he also has with Kate. But there is a narrative need
to interrogate that if the movie is to honestly portray Peter’s perspective on
what his son is going though, yet neither he nor the film is willing to broach
the topic.
Although it could just
be that Zeller and Hampton don’t know how. This movie is required to be more
frank about its’ subject than The Father, and this is a weakness as it
reveals how Zeller and Hampton aren’t equipped to have a serious discussion on
teen mental health and suicidal tendencies. Centring Peter allows for a buffer
on this, as he’s not expected to understand either, but still there’s a lot of
reductionism at play, and every time Nicholas is made to articulate his
feelings it comes out as a series of generalizations or avoidance tactics. The
scenes between him and Peter, the intended cornerstone of the piece, are the
worst for this -as each seems to embody a stereotype of a particular position
more than a real person. It’s quite clear that Zeller and Hampton have no
firsthand experience with the reality of this material.
That might be the
critical distinction between The Son and the movie it most reminds me
of, a movie I haven’t thought about in years: Beautiful Boy, the 2018
film about a father and son struggling through the son’s issues with addiction.
It may not be remembered for much more than its’ title, but it was a far more
believable, far more touching illustration of this kind of difficult paternal
relationship. Unlike The Son, it is
told from both angles and with a tangible connection to truth that this film
simply doesn’t have -you feel the weight of the sorrow there, it isn’t in any
way a prop. And it should go without saying that Zen McGrath is no Timothée Chalamet, but Hugh
Jackman is somehow no Steve Carrell either.
For whatever reason,
Jackman does not work in this movie. As much as he gives, as highly as he
emotes, it simply fails to generate genuine pathos. A part of this does rest in
the script and how poorly the character’s personality and motivations come
across, but Jackman’s own choices often feel forced for dramatic tension. In
several scenes, he’s putting way more in and in broader strokes than is
necessary. He’s charismatic here and there, but that also works against the
performance, as he struggles to get a handle on Peter’s complexes, which
include unresolved daddy issues of his own, and how to express them. It’s a
performance that goes hard without direction and consequently falls flat, and
the same could be said of McGrath, who is plainly not ready as an actor for
this kind of material. He visibly struggles through much of the movie and it
can often be difficult to watch –especially when he needs to be distraught,
which only combines with the script deficiencies to be horribly awkward. He’s
not particularly convincing in the calmer scenes either, where just about his
every line and expression is tinged with insincerity. Laura Dern and particularly
Vanessa Kirby fare slightly better, but for what interest their characters may
have in Nicholas, the film remains laser-focused on him and Peter.
That carries through
to the end, which is a minefield of bizarre grand emotional shifts, each
desperately trying to court audience sympathy. Twice in the last act, a dark
bait-and-switch is pulled that seems to be a last-ditch effort to emulate the
presentational style of The Father
–but it has no bearing in context or point-of-view so it instead just feels
inappropriately indulgent, especially the final sequence which gracelessly
nosedives from bliss into misery. And nothing valuable is stated by this, it is
bleak entirely for its’ own sake.
Anthony Hopkins makes
a cameo appearance as Peter’s father. Wikipedia tells me it’s supposed to be a
reprise of his role in The Father and
that this movie is a prequel, but the film itself never supports that (no
mention was ever made of a son in The
Father). And the less this movie is connected to that one, the better. It’s
hard to believe that not only Zeller and Hampton were involved, but virtually
the entire production team of The Father
returned for it. Under those circumstances, the movie has no reason to be this
disappointing. The Son might be an
interesting example of the hubris that follows unexpected success, or it just
might be a failure in adaptation –but something clearly went wrong, and it would
be a good idea if Zeller intends to continue making movies that he look outside
to other kinds of work for inspiration.
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