The Son: a follow-up that can’t quite fill The Father’s shoes
Florian Zeller’s adaptation of the third instalment of his trilogy of plays from the 2010s features a formidable performance from Hugh Jackman, but too often spills into melodrama.
- Reviewed at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.
After Florian Zeller’s harrowing dementia drama The Father (2020) received widespread acclaim and netted a well-deserved Oscar for lead actor Anthony Hopkins, it was announced that the final instalment of Zeller’s trilogy of plays – which began with The Mother, continued with The Father and ended with The Son – would be next up for screen adaptation.
Though the stories are connected only thematically, The Son sees Zeller once again unflinchingly tackling bleak subject matter, with Peter (Hugh Jackman) trying to rescue his 17-year-old son Nicholas (newcomer Zen McGrath) from a spiral of depression. But unlike The Father, whose cinema techniques evinced the perspective of a person unable to keep a hold on reality, The Son has no such cinematic creativity, relaying the story’s tragic events with a plangent plainness.
Zeller, evidently keen to break free of the material’s theatrical origins, eschews the single setting of the play and tells the story across New York and Washington, through a series of impeccably designed apartments, sleek offices and the palatial home of Peter’s own father (Anthony Hopkins, in a cameo that proves the film’s highlight). There’s no denying production designer Simon Bowles’ impeccable eye for object placement: everything from mismatched couch cushions to dining-room furnishings has a distinct sense of purpose, quietly relaying aspects of the lives led before the film’s events take place.
Jackman is formidable as Peter – a Clark Kent-ish paternal figure, sharply suited with dazzling white teeth and a suspiciously deep tan. As the film goes on, the cracks in Peter’s façade begin to widen, and he grows horrified by what lies beneath. McGrath, however, has too wide a remit: tasked with evincing depression, deception and confusion, his performance is uneven.
The simplicity of Zeller’s dialogue made The Father feel particularly brutal, but here it occasionally spills into hollow melodrama, with a hammy third-act confrontation between father and son. While the film posits that cruelty and mental illness work in collaboration, this symbiosis as felt by Nicholas is rarely articulated with specificity. A wordless moment where Peter, Nicholas and Peter’s new wife Beth dance to Tom Jones’ ‘It’s Not Unusual’ reminds us that Zeller’s strength lies elsewhere, in conveying forceful but naturalistic changes of mood: the music changes to something deeply melancholy, succinctly expressing how ‘fun’ still feels for Nicholas. Based on such strengths, The Mother should be eagerly anticipated, should Zeller get the chance to complete his trilogy – even if The Son cannot quite fill The Father’s shoes.