THE SON
****
Director: Florian Zeller
Screenplay: Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton, based on the play by Florian Zeller.
Principal cast:
Hugh Jackman
Laura Dern
Zen McGrath
Vanessa Kirby
Anthony Hopkins
Hugh Quarshie
Country: UK/France
Classification: M
Runtime: 123 mins.
Australian release date: 9 February 2023.
Florian Zeller is a highly successful French playwright who earned great acclaim with his Oscar-winning debut as a film director, The Father, which began life as one of his plays. Now, he returns to the screen with his sophomore directorial effort, also based on a play of his own creation and, once again, co-written with the great British playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton. Like The Father, The Son deals with mental illness, however, it doesn’t reach the same lofty heights as the former, despite featuring some towering performances. There are no Academy Award nominations this time.
Australian song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman has shown that he can turn his acting skills to pretty much any genre and he’s taken on a very tortured character for this role. He plays Peter Miller, a highly regarded corporate lawyer in New York City who left his first wife, Kate (Laura Dern), and their son Nicholas (fellow Aussie actor Zen McGrath), and has subsequently married Beth (Vanessa Kirby), with whom he has an infant child. Out of the blue, Kate turns up on his doorstep with some dire news – now 17-year-old Nicholas has been skipping school for weeks and barely talks to her – and she wants Peter to take the lad into his care. Naturally, Peter is somewhat torn, considering the feelings of his new wife and the complexities of living with a baby in the apartment, but he recognises that he is responsible for his first-born son and must step up. At first, things seem to be going well but, before long, Nicholas reverts to his previous depressed state, lamenting that “life is weighing him down.” Peter is determined to do whatever it takes to help the boy, knowing full well how his own father (a chilling performance from Anthony Hopkins) neglected him, but no amount of encouragement seems to make a difference to Nicholas’s mental condition.
The Son was a project that struck a chord with Jackman, who was dead keen to take on the part of Peter and has given it his all. His portrayal of the stricken, powerless father of a troubled child is faultless and harrowing. Dern also gives a powerhouse performance as a mother at the end of her tether, who can’t understand what is happening to her once happy son. Newcomer McGrath has the difficult task of making Nicholas someone we feel empathy for – his character is withdrawn, taciturn and not entirely honest, yet he makes us understand that this is a kid suffering from a serious mental health issue. Hopkins, who only has one scene, is terrifying as Peter’s father, a wealthy man who obviously cared little for his family and regarded it as an impediment to his working life; he’s a monster. Indeed, he makes us wonder who is the ‘son’ of the title, Peter or Nicholas.
Zeller says that, “The Son is a film I have wanted to direct for years. When telling stories about families, there is no denying the intergenerational dynamics and patterns that exist and are passed down from one generation to the next. This is something that I find fascinating and also essential to examine as we try to understand what drives people in every family - no matter where they are from - to behave the way we do as well as how we interact with our parents and children.” He has reduced the drama to its core, concentrating on the immediate family. Even when the camera leaves Peter and Beth’s apartment, the city appears almost deserted, and it’s filmed as though the Millers are its only inhabitants. Hans Zimmer’s spare and slightly ominous score adds to this feeling of isolation.
Before writing his plays The Father and The Son, Zeller wrote The Mother, which was performed in New York in 2019 with Isabelle Huppert in the lead role. It, too, is an examination of mental disorder, so it will be interesting to see if it becomes the playwright’s next film. I hope so – it would make a trilogy of movies on an issue that is becoming more and more prevalent. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Over two in five Australians aged 16-85 years (43.7% or 8.6 million people) had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life,” so any light thrown on the subject has to be a good thing.
Screenplay: Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton, based on the play by Florian Zeller.
Principal cast:
Hugh Jackman
Laura Dern
Zen McGrath
Vanessa Kirby
Anthony Hopkins
Hugh Quarshie
Country: UK/France
Classification: M
Runtime: 123 mins.
Australian release date: 9 February 2023.
Florian Zeller is a highly successful French playwright who earned great acclaim with his Oscar-winning debut as a film director, The Father, which began life as one of his plays. Now, he returns to the screen with his sophomore directorial effort, also based on a play of his own creation and, once again, co-written with the great British playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton. Like The Father, The Son deals with mental illness, however, it doesn’t reach the same lofty heights as the former, despite featuring some towering performances. There are no Academy Award nominations this time.
Australian song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman has shown that he can turn his acting skills to pretty much any genre and he’s taken on a very tortured character for this role. He plays Peter Miller, a highly regarded corporate lawyer in New York City who left his first wife, Kate (Laura Dern), and their son Nicholas (fellow Aussie actor Zen McGrath), and has subsequently married Beth (Vanessa Kirby), with whom he has an infant child. Out of the blue, Kate turns up on his doorstep with some dire news – now 17-year-old Nicholas has been skipping school for weeks and barely talks to her – and she wants Peter to take the lad into his care. Naturally, Peter is somewhat torn, considering the feelings of his new wife and the complexities of living with a baby in the apartment, but he recognises that he is responsible for his first-born son and must step up. At first, things seem to be going well but, before long, Nicholas reverts to his previous depressed state, lamenting that “life is weighing him down.” Peter is determined to do whatever it takes to help the boy, knowing full well how his own father (a chilling performance from Anthony Hopkins) neglected him, but no amount of encouragement seems to make a difference to Nicholas’s mental condition.
The Son was a project that struck a chord with Jackman, who was dead keen to take on the part of Peter and has given it his all. His portrayal of the stricken, powerless father of a troubled child is faultless and harrowing. Dern also gives a powerhouse performance as a mother at the end of her tether, who can’t understand what is happening to her once happy son. Newcomer McGrath has the difficult task of making Nicholas someone we feel empathy for – his character is withdrawn, taciturn and not entirely honest, yet he makes us understand that this is a kid suffering from a serious mental health issue. Hopkins, who only has one scene, is terrifying as Peter’s father, a wealthy man who obviously cared little for his family and regarded it as an impediment to his working life; he’s a monster. Indeed, he makes us wonder who is the ‘son’ of the title, Peter or Nicholas.
Zeller says that, “The Son is a film I have wanted to direct for years. When telling stories about families, there is no denying the intergenerational dynamics and patterns that exist and are passed down from one generation to the next. This is something that I find fascinating and also essential to examine as we try to understand what drives people in every family - no matter where they are from - to behave the way we do as well as how we interact with our parents and children.” He has reduced the drama to its core, concentrating on the immediate family. Even when the camera leaves Peter and Beth’s apartment, the city appears almost deserted, and it’s filmed as though the Millers are its only inhabitants. Hans Zimmer’s spare and slightly ominous score adds to this feeling of isolation.
Before writing his plays The Father and The Son, Zeller wrote The Mother, which was performed in New York in 2019 with Isabelle Huppert in the lead role. It, too, is an examination of mental disorder, so it will be interesting to see if it becomes the playwright’s next film. I hope so – it would make a trilogy of movies on an issue that is becoming more and more prevalent. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Over two in five Australians aged 16-85 years (43.7% or 8.6 million people) had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life,” so any light thrown on the subject has to be a good thing.