THE SON - Fan Page

[njr]

Too bad Hugh wasn’t nominated. ☹️ So now it’s either going to Austin Butler or Brendan Fraser I believe.

Nancy

[jo]

[jo]

Translated from Spanish by Google:

"It's shocking that something so raw and moving can come so close to reality."
"Great performance by Hugh Jackman"

[jo]

A reader review on IMDB :

6/10
Collateral Damage from the Sins of the Father
Sees All20 January 2023
I was reminded of a movie from 1985 called TWICE IN A LIFETIME. In that one, Gene Hackman left his wife (Ellen Burstyn) for younger, more vivacious Ann-Margret. He lived happily after and everybody else accepted it. But I didn't believe it for a second. In this one, Hugh Jackman has left Laura Dern for somewhat younger Vanessa Kirby and started a new life with a new baby boy. Dern and their teenage son (Zen McGrath) were supposed to just suck it up and get over it. But they didn't. The son especially is in bad shape. This movie is a heck of a lot more honest than TWICE IN A LIFETIME. It is both painful and sad. When the son starts having serious emotional problems, they work it out so that he goes to live with his father and the new wife. Everyone tries to make it work, but it doesn't it. The story is brilliantly acted by the four principal players and Anthony Hopkins, in a dazzling cameo as Jackman's father. The trouble with this film is that there's really no place it can go. It's an untenable situation and no matter what anyone does, the past cannot be changed. Based on a French play, Le Fils, its stage roots show. It isn't claustrophobic, but it IS really talky. The actors handle the dialogue quite well, but their silent moments are every bit as powerful as their big speeches. Jackman, especially, gives a masterful performance in which he runs the gamut of emotions. His final scene is a real tear-jerker, but the part I liked best was when he danced. This is when filmgoers get a brief glimpse of Jackman the charismatic stage performer. (Please let him do more of this in future films!) This movie is a soap opera-a well-done soap opera, but nonetheless, that IS what it is.

[jo]

From Twitter --

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🌈ANDY JONNY🎬
@andresjovannyma
Hoy vi está película #ElHijo dirigida por #FlorianZeller y protagonizada por #HughJackman y #LauraDern precuela de #TheFather 2020 #anthonyhopkins

Una película que todo padre tiene que ver, la salud mental es un tema del que se tiene que hablar y está película es un ejemplo

Translated from Spanish by Google :

Today I saw this movie #ElHijo directed by #FlorianZeller and starring #HughJackman and #LauraDern prequel to #TheFather 2020 #anthonyhopkins

A movie that every parent has to see, mental health is a topic that has to be talked about and this movie is an example

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

Eduardo Marín Conde
@marincine
Intensa,siempre absorbente, El Hijo (en cines),sobre un hombre cuya vida se ve trastocada dramáticamente cuando su hijo adolescente llega a vivir con él y su nueva esposa. Agudo y anti complaciente testimonio de relaciones filiales,con un gran reparto, encabezado por Hugh Jackman

Translated from Spanish by Google:

Intense, always compelling, El Hijo (in theaters), about a man whose life is dramatically upended when his teenage son comes to live with him and his new wife. Sharp and anti-complacent testimony of filial relationships, with a great cast, headed by Hugh Jackman

[jo]

From Alexander Blanchett ( IMDB User Review) --

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Alexander_Blanchett
IMDb member since August 2001


68. The Son


The Son (2022)


8 of 10 *

Hugh Jackman is The Son

31 January 2023 - 0 out of 3 users found this review helpful.


I think I am one of the very few people who really loved this and got emotionally very engaged to it. Yes it is inferior to "The Father" but that was to be expected as "The Father" was one of the true masterpieces of the last years. This is more conventional and straight forward.

I have read many reviews of people complaining it is not depicting mental illness correctly or at least very shallow and cliched. I cannot judge that as I never experienced mental illness and to me it appeared to be very believable, Other complained that it is not out of the perspective of the son but of the father, well that makes sense. Because the film is less about mental illness as such but rather how it is handled by a parent. And it is about a generation conflict, the father wants to be a better father than his own father was. Ever thought that the title of The Son is not referring to the kid but rather to Hugh Jackman's character? He plays a son who had a bad childhood, who blames his father for a lot of things and whose father is not regretting any of it. Now he is in the position to face a challenge with his own kid and tries to be a better father than his own father. But as he never got affection, understanding and probably love as a son himself, it is hard for him to forward these emotions to his own kid who has serious issues that are therefor difficult to handle for Jackman's character.

This is how I interpret the film and title, and I think due to bad marketing that got lost in many audiences perspectives.

I loved Hugh Jackman who gave a tremendous performance. One of his career best for sure. He has many layers of emotions to go through and his final scenes are simply devastating. Surely deserves more attention than he received. Laura Dern is servevable as always. A good performance, not truly outstanding, but nails it nevertheless. Vanessa Kirby had the more interesting role and therefor was able to show more facettes due to the conflict she goes through. Anthony Hopkins appears in a small but very memorable and effective role. Great work again that shows his fantastic range (He plays to Grandfather characters this year that couldn't e more different .- see Armageddon Times).

Last but not least we have Zen McGrath. Many people complained about his performance. I dont get this. I thought he was fantastic and really captured the essence of his role. He did make me care for his character and his well-being. I was really attached to him and that proves that his performance worked perfectly for me. Dont understand the bashing.

Besides the fantastic ensemble acting we also have a very solid direction by Florian Zeller. He builds up tension effectively and takes his time for his characters. Great job again. The screenplay was great, too. I dont get the criticism there either. I think people were expecting too much for a second "The Father" and were disappointed that this was taking a completely different and more straight forward direction.

[jo]

Another review from IMDB --

msbreviews
Review of The Son
The Son
The Son (I) (2022)
8/10
The Son is an emotionally devastating film with a shocking yet important cautionary message for all parents.
15 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
If you enjoy reading my Spoiler-Free thoughts, please follow my blog to read my full review

"The Son is an emotionally devastating film with a shocking yet important cautionary message for all parents.

A gradually sadder, depressing, frustrating story that grips the audience through its tension-filled dialogue, but the lack of something new and impactful directly about those primarily affected by mental health issues could be an uncomfortable trigger for many viewers.

Hugh Jackman stands out with one of the best performances of his career in a genuinely powerful, tear-inducing display. Florian Zeller's movie will get an understandably divisive reception, but I definitely consider it a must-watch flick."

Rating: B+

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م.عبدالرزاق بهبهاني
@rzaig
The Son
الصورة البائسة للحياة وتقلباتها، حالة من الحالات النفسية الي تستحق الدراسة، Florian Zeller دائما ما كان يخلق حالة صراع نفسي بشكل مميز واظهر ذلك في فيلم The Father أيضا، فلم درامي مميز، وقصة رائعة جدا ومن أجمل اعمال السنة، اداء رائع من الجميع وعظيم من Hugh Jackman بالأخص..

Translated from Arabic by Google :

The Son
The miserable picture of life and its ups and downs, one of the psychological cases that deserves study, Florian Zeller always created a state of psychological conflict in a distinctive way, and this was shown in the movie The Father as well, a distinguished dramatic movie, and a very wonderful story and one of the most beautiful works of the year, a wonderful performance from everyone and a great from Hugh Jackman especially.

[jo]

[jo]

filmgenuss
@mgruenwald77

Schweres Kino wie schon lange nicht mehr: Florian Zeller schickt Hugh Jackman in die unbekannte Dimension einer psychischen Erkrankung und schlägt damit auch direkt in die Magengrube.

Translated from German by Google:

Heavy cinema like it hasn't been for a long time: Florian Zeller sends Hugh Jackman into the unknown dimension of a mental illness and thus hits him directly in the pit of his stomach.

[jo]

[jo]

Another IMDB User Review --

9/10

Upset and shocked with the unbelievable reviews

xgarzon-718196 February 2023

This movie creates unexpected moments of deep reflections and touches one of the most important themes of nowadays societies. We need these kind of art and scripts. People are just so superficial that don't really understand the depth of this film.

The capacity of the actors to really take you into a deep conversation where themes like empathy, kindness, depression and human interaction is always rich and powerful.

It's always beyond the typical script where common places fall. It can become so personal that for some people this movie can be so hurting that creates a sense of impotence and frustration with what seems to be a normal situation in life.

Excellent and unforgettable.

[jo]

From Rotten Tonatoes --

Xavier G
4.5 of 5 *

14h ago
It's a very good movie. The way it touches its theme is so deep and moving. Shocked by the reviews of some very superficial critics!

Jo

[jo]

A short review from Germany --

Movie review «The Son»
An essentially important theme that underlies this film and unfortunately is still often not noticed in society and in families. Mental health is just as relevant as physical health. Because when the soul screams, the next step is not far.
Release date: February 9

Image from the film «The Son»

Conclusion «The Son»
It is remarkable how director Florian Zeller manages to convey the topic of depression so tangibly. As a spectator and trained psychologist, I am almost desperate from the blindness of the environment. But often in the family system one lacks an eye for the obvious and especially the generation of parents shown is sometimes still derogatory towards mental illness. You just have to try harder, nothing comes from nothing, etc. are the accusations and demands of the people. If you can't, you can't! Accusations and reproaches do not help at all! The film shows mercilessly what consequences false support can have. It is also high time. Because we have to stop imposing our needs on the other person, as the last scene so blatantly shows, and finally learn to listen to each other and to be there for each other.

[jo]

[jo]

barbara p
5h ago
A beautifully crafted, sensitive film. Beautifully acted. Very emotional. Any parent who has felt disconnected from a child, especially an adolescent, needs to see the film, likewise, parents who have separated and the possible silent suffering of children who don't have the words to explain how they feel and what they wish for.

[jo]

Mohammed Al Ahbabi
@m_soufan97
الفيلم يناقش مسألة شائكة قد تكون غير مطروقة من قبل وهي التربية وما تقوم عليه من أسس وضرورة تحلي الوالدين ببعد النظر بين ماهو مهم وما هو أهم.
عاب الفيلم miss casting رغم استثنائية أداء Hugh Jackman وتميز ظهور Anthony Hopkins.
#TheSon

Translated from Arabic by Google:

The film discusses a thorny issue that may not have been explored before, which is education and the foundations on which it is based, and the need for parents to have farsightedness between what is important and what is more important.
The movie missed its casting, despite the exceptional performance of Hugh Jackman and the distinguished appearance of Anthony Hopkins.
#TheSon

[jo]

An IMDB review -- very circuitous...but very personal in the reviewer's view.

LONG!

8/10

The road (not) taken

Horst_In_Translation9 February 2023

Warning: Spoilers


"The Son" is a relatively new movie from 2022 and this is a co-production between the United Kingdom and France and the first component is more dominant here in terms of this being an English-language movie from beginning to end and the second component is more dominant in terms of writer and director Florian Zeller because he originates from France. He wrote his play "The Father" many years ago and the movie that brought Anthony Hopkins his second Oscar two years ago was not the first time that said play got turned into a movie. By the way, Zeller of course also won the Oscar there for his screenplay, namely together with the more experienced Christopher Hampton who won his first Oscar already the year the Berlin Wall fell. Given the huge success of "The Father", it is no surprise that Zeller took a relatively similar route here. You see that already from the title of "The Son", a film that runs for slightly over two hours if you include closing credits and slightly under if you dismiss them. The cast has big names too: Hugh Jackman is always easy to identify and his inclusion was maybe the main reason why I wanted to see the film. Big fan here, not only because of "Les Misérables", but it helped. Just watched a stage show linked to the film not too long ago, one that had all the songs. That is another story though and now we go back to this film here. I was talking about the cast. Laura Dern is an Oscar winner now and honestly I cannot say too much positive about her. Never saw a great deal of talent in her. She does not seem to have many different face expressions and also tends to overact in her movies. I like her dad though, he's a decent actor. Pity his talent did not really wander to the next generation. Vanessa Kirby, who plays the second big female character, scored her (first) Oscar nomination also not too long ago and she was not famous at all before that. I think her portrayal here was merely okay, she did not really win me over either. It was rather the males here who impressed me.

With Jackman, I am biased, but Zen McGrath was new to me. I am not sure yet if he was just the perfect casting decision for a suffering character or if he is really very talented, but time will tell. He has been acting for almost a decade before this film already, quite a long time given his age, but I have not seen him in anything else. Not many have because these projects were not really known. So you can say that what we have here is his breakthrough role. He held his own well next to Jackman and the two experienced female actors in here. I am surprised that he scored almost no awards recognition at all. I am also surprised that critics, but also regular movie-goers were not particularly fond of the outcome overall. I mean I don't expect the same success "The Father" had, but the ratings and positive receptions are lower than I thought. Much lower maybe even. Oh, speaking of "The Father" again, Anthony Hopkins also agreed to show up for a little cameo in this film here and I thought he was another quality addition. He plays the protagonist's father of course, but it is not the same character from the previous film I am 99% sure. He seemed to be at good health (also the actor I hope) and also he played a character that will not accept any weaknesses at all and who never would have let his family get in the way of his professional ambitions, which is also why he does not understand his son's decision to step away from joining the campaign of an aspiring politician and instead stay at home to be there for his boy. Here you can say that the film's title "The Son" did not only refer to McGrath's character. There are quite a few sons in here, even one who is still a baby. So the film could also have been called "The Sons".

Anyway, the key issue in this film that you could even call the main antagonist is depression. The boy is suffering from a severe form of it that might even result in suicide attempts and he really tries to change the situation when he decides to leave his mother for a while and live with his dad instead. The problem, however, is really inside him and it is not the outside world. Other conflicts include the main character's decision a while ago to divorce his woman (Dern) to live with his new girlfriend (Kirby) and the boy does not cope well with that at all, but still he does not hate his father or anything because of what he did. We are also not supposed to hate the man as we see he gets along better with Dern's character again and we are also told that the man stayed with Dern's character back then for years to make the boy's childhood less stressful this way. So Jackman's character did bring some sacrifice for sure. He is not evil. The fact that he cancels the support for the aforementioned politician is also telling enough. Anyway, just one thing, even if it sounds maybe a bit mean, I had a hard time to imagine Dern's and Jackman's characters as a couple. I am not even saying the age difference is a factor, but it's rather the looks. They explained this in a way by saying that Dern's character has suffered a lot from the breakup and of course she was also the one who mostly raised the kid and went through a lot of stress there. Just one minor think that kept crossing my mind. On another negative note, the scene early on when the boy has just moved in with his dad it was I think was also not too great how it showed us the trio immediately one after the other with the situations they were in that very moment. But I do not have many other negative criticisms here. I thought this was a really good watch from my perspective and I am definitely glad I went.

It was not a great film from the very start, but I liked the way the boy's struggles were depicted. What he did exactly and also the words he chose. How he could not put his condition into words really. The idea of him not being able to go to school also worked convincingly from my perspective. This is exactly what it could look like / looked like. School/university can just be a gigantic wall in this very case. I also liked the depiction of the relationship between the two women. The very first scene there was already really good how the teenage boy's mother shows up and wakes the child because of the conflict outside the apartment after Kirby's character before that tried to make sure he stays asleep. They did not include any bad blood at all between the two women. No fake pseudo drama. Just convincing like the rest of it. In his big success film before this one here, Zeller took us into the world of an old man who was slowly losing his mental health. Here he takes us into the mind of a mentally unwell teenage boy. The gender is the same and so is the background. Only the age differs, but both have better days and worse days. What "The Father" is maybe mostly remembered for except Hopkins' turn is how Zeller turned the film into something you could call a "mind" plus four other letters starting with f. You know what I mean. He did the same here by playing with the audience's perception and offered basically two alternate endings. Well, the actual ending is the depressing one where the boy has died from committing suicide a few years ago already, but it is easy to say that the film does not have one specific ending. I think that the sad ending was maybe even more appropriate because the book's title in the happy ending just relied too much on the unhappy ending and in reality only one can happen and not both, even if the boy surely thought a lot about suicide, so the title of the book makes sense again from this perspective I guess.

I was surely at the edge of my seat in the last half hour here. Gripping stuff, even if in retrospective I might have preferred a solution between these two extremes. But you can't always get what you want. Becoming a successful writer while at the same time moving in with his girl was also just too much. Plus, he was fully healed there too. In any case, in the other scenario, the moment before the boy leaves for the bathroom, it was all so exaggeratedly harmonic that I (in contrast to the parents) kinda knew something was wrong. The moment when he apologized to his parents for what he did was an indicator of bad news and how the kid was in a way looking for closure. However, it was not this escalation or how things turned out right in the other ending that convinced me to give this film 4 stars out of 5 and not "only" 3 out of 5, but it was the scene with the head psychiatrist before that that was basically the point where the parents had to decide for path a or path b that then would take them to these very different endings. First, I was a bit surprised when they said they cannot take him home with them and then we still see him with them in the car, but immediately afterwards you could understand what Zeller did there. So yeah, this scene with Hugh Quarshie then was really awesome and made it impossible for me to not give out a (very) positive recommendation overall. The film did have some good moments before that too though, like the earring scene or the pre-intercourse interruption. The childhood flashbacks to the beach on the other hand did not do too much for me. That is all then. Overall, I like this film even more than "The Father", maybe because of how much I like Jackman and maybe also because the subject it is about hits closer to home for me, so I am not unbiased, but I think this film here deserves a way better reception than it has so far. Under 50% is just neither fair nor accurate. I give 80. Maybe many hated it simply because it was a depressing watch. Realistically depressing I'd say. This was much better than "Aftersun", the other 2022 film about depression that is getting stellar reviews. I find that one very overrated. By the way, also nice to see Jackman score another Golden Globe nomination for this one here. The dance scene was funny too given HJ's background. I highly recommend the watch.
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Reinaldo Glioche
@rglioche
Confesso não entender a obliteração de "Um Filho" na temporada de premiações. A despeito do tema espinhoso, mais um filme poderoso e cheio de reminiscências de Florian Zeller sobre família e saúde mental. Hugh Jackman está esplêndido! #cinema #cultura

Translated from Portuguese by Google:

I confess to not understanding the obliteration of "Um Filho" in awards season. Despite the thorny theme, yet another powerful and reminiscent film by Florian Zeller about family and mental health. Hugh Jackman is splendid! #cinema #cultura

Cultural divide across the pond?

Jo