The Son

When I began this movie, I really had no idea where the story was going to go. I just saw that it was a Hugh Jackman film and wanted to see it. He's always been one of my favorite actors. This story is very personal to me because not only have I too dealt with mental illness for a long time now, but I have also lost several loved ones to suicide. My heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest. Watching this story also made me question how I have dealt with my own children at times. Now, they are all adults but one of my sons deals with depression and anxiety and there were some years during his adolescence that I really worried if he would try to hurt himself. I encourage everyone who watches this film, to hugged your children tight, constantly tell them you love them, and pay attention to them. It is so easy to get involved in life and miss little clues that are right there. But truthfully, just as it is performed in this movie, our love can prevent us from seeing the truth because we don't want to believe it. This was a very touching movie.

I don't know much about depression but I do know how people react to it if someone close to them have it. Florian Zeller may not have presented how accurate acute depression is but his depiction of characters around a person suffering from it is near perfect.

The Son works for me more than The Father because it relies very little on subtext and the story is out there in the open. Hugh Jackman gives his career best performance as a role of a successful person but an absent father. There are criticisms of how the movie does not empathize with Nicholos but I didn't feel it that way. I felt it was rather accurate because of how less most of us understand what depression is actually is. Most of the times, people think "it's just in your head" or "move forward" are actual solutions to depression.

The scene where Hugh Jackman fights with his son was spectacular and shows us how much we are like our dads. Hopkins appears in just one scene but that single scene shows the irony of Jackman's character. The ending was absolutely devastating and very brave. The Son is one of the very films which worked very well for me despite it's not so favourable general public reception.

I actually really liked this movie. I believe it tells a good story about family as their son struggles with a mental illness. The biggest problem with this movie is that some of its line deliveries come off as weird and unnatural. Also there is a scene that is mentioned but we do not actually see it. This movie is not an easy watch. The movie gets to be very heavy at certain moments. Even with all of those problems the movie is carried by a great performance by Huge Jackman and Lora Dern. This movie gives great insight into what it is like to be battle with a mental illness. Some people may not like this as much as me, but this is a really good movie.

The Son is every parent's nightmare. Reminiscent of Birth in the way the uncanny permeates every frame and implants a creeping sense of foreboding under your skin. Vanessa Kirby as Beth is the most relatable character, as she seems as confused by Nicholas as the audience. Hugh Jackman nails it as the father trying to do the right thing and slowly realising that there are some things that are just beyond our control. Zen McGrath is naturalistic as Nicholas, allowing the actions to speak for themselves and calibrating perfectly a performance it would be easy to over-egg. There is something stagey about the production, a nod to the play origins, and done deliberately one feels, as it adds to the sense of unreal events overtaking characters. My favourite moment was when the parents leave the hospital having made one decision, only for the next cut to show they reversed it. A harrowing film that will hopefully start important conversations for some people.

Whether or not this is about behavior, due to some degree of mental illness, both parents and step-mother, especially the father, seem completely out of touch with their son's very real and obvious psychiatric and emotional problems to the degree of appearing themselves part of the problem, if not even the trigger of the escalation.

But I am not sure what the movie was telling us? Somewhere between script, direction and editing the whole thing got either diluted to indecisiveness of message, or confusion about the moral we were supposed to walk away with.

Even the actors seemed confused as to how they were supposed to deliver their parts.

It could be argued that real life is like that, but I've had 64 years of it and I would disagree.

The kid had real psychiatric issues and he was even explaining them to his parents, who were competitive go-getters by nature and they seemed to be in total denial of their son's reality.

I think the movie was a good idea badly executed.