movie review the son 2022

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Watch The Son with a subscription on Hulu, rent on Fandango at Home, or buy on Fandango at Home.

What to Know

Despite reliably solid work from Laura Dern and Hugh Jackman, The Son remains mired in off-puttingly aggressive melodrama.

The Son does a fairly admirable job of handling some tough subject matter, although the way the characters are written may take some viewers out of the story.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Florian Zeller

Hugh Jackman

Anthony Hopkins

Vanessa Kirby

William Hope

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‘The Son’ Review: Hugh Jackman Goes Deep in ‘The Father’ Director’s Devastating Follow-up

On the strength of his 2020 Oscar win, playwright-turned-helmer Florian Zeller assembles a stellar cast — including newcomer Zen McGrath — to explore another dimension of mental health.

By Peter Debruge

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From Sophocles to Shakespeare, it all comes back to family. Writers can get as high-concept as they like, but in the end, the world’s greatest storytellers recognize that nothing is more potent — not even romantic love — than the connections between children and their parents. Florian Zeller gets it. Before turning his attention to the screen, the gifted French scribe wrote at least a dozen plays, the most acclaimed of which were a trilogy focusing on how mental health issues devastate seemingly functional bourgeois families: “The Mother” (depression), “The Father” (dementia) and “ The Son ” (you’ll see).

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Instead of feeling loose and lived in, Zeller’s adaptation of his own play has a slightly heightened quality, not to be confused with “theatrical”: The sets feel disconcertingly under-decorated, as if the characters were living in an Ikea showroom. The sound design has been dialed down, such that sirens and street noise (a New York near-constant) barely register. The dialogue, adapted into English with Christopher Hampton’s help, suggests what people might say in such a situation. These very concerns have fueled countless TV movies, and yet, Zeller is going for the most “tasteful” possible treatment. Instead of merely wrenching us emotionally — which “The Son” will inevitably succeed in doing anyway — he wants to get audiences thinking.

Study the dynamic between father and son carefully, and you’ll spot a fascinating trick at work, even subtler than the sleight of hand Zeller used to make audiences feel as if they were slowly losing their minds (like Hopkins’ character) in “The Father”: In the role of Peter, Jackman becomes a man caught up in his own kind of performance. The seldom-home workaholic desperately wants to be perceived as an ideal patriarch but seems to know (or suspect) deep down that he’s a failure in that department. That means Jackman is essentially playing a man playing a dad.

If you doubt this reading, consider one of the film’s defining scenes, when Peter takes a rare break from work to see his own dad (Anthony Hopkins as Anthony, a different father from “The Father”) to let him know he’s thinking of turning down a D.C. politician’s offer to oversee his campaign, since Nicholas needs him. It seems to Peter like the right call, but Anthony sees right through his agenda. “Your daddy wasn’t nice to you. So what?” he spits. “Just fucking get over it!”

For Nicholas’ parents, as well as any fathers and mothers in the audience, it’s upsetting to see someone so young overwhelmed by the world around him — a state of mind McGrath plays more subtly than Laurie Kynaston did in the West End stage version, where the character scribbled on walls and upended furniture in agitation. Not this Nicholas. He’s largely a cipher, stashing a weapon under his mattress and showing an unsettling interest in his infant stepbrother (whom he sees as a replacement of sorts). This is no easy role, since the slightest bit of menace would likely sabotage the sensitivity of Zeller’s portrayal.

“The Son” isn’t an easy watch, but it’s an important one at a time when young people are very much in crisis. Just look at the statistics, and it’s clear that depression, self-harm and suicide are up in alarming rates among teenagers — and that’s even before you factor in the challenges of the pandemic. When Nicholas asks his father about the rifle he noticed in the laundry room, it’s not clear whether this disgruntled teen plans to use it on his classmates or himself. Ask Chekhov how you ought to feel for the rest of the film.

Beth is frightened, but tries her best to be a caring stepmother, as in an atypically light scene when she pressures Peter to demonstrate his “famous hip sway.” Out comes a glimpse of the goofball behind Hugh Jackman’s star persona. Between this and “Bad Education,” we’re seeing a new chapter of his career, as Jackman subsumes his natural charisma in order to suggest Peter’s fundamental insecurity: He wants to break the cycle, to be a better dad than the one he had. But he doesn’t understand what he’s up against, and in watching “The Son” play out, this family’s tragedy becomes our own, and Zeller’s warning becomes impossible to ignore.

Reviewed at Sepulveda Screening Room, Aug. 30, 2022. In Venice, Toronto film festivals. Running time: 123 MIN.

Production: (U.S.-France-U.K.) A Sony Pictures Classics release of a Film4, Ingenious presentation, in association with Cross City Films, Embarkment Films, of a See-Saw Films, IntoTheVoid production. Producers: Joanna Laurie, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Florian Zeller, Christophe Spadone. Executive producers: Simon Gillis, Philippe Carcassonne, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Battsek, Ollie Madden, Lauren Dark, Peter Touche, Christelle Conan, Hugo Grumbar, Tim Haslam.
Crew: Director: Florian Zeller. Screenplay: Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller, based on the play “Le Fils” by Florian Zeller. Camera: Ben Smithard. Editor: Yorgos Lamprinos. Music: Hans Zimmer.
With: Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath, Hugh Quarshie, Anthony Hopkins.

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Cast & crew

User reviews

Anthony Hopkins, Laura Dern, Hugh Jackman, George Cobell, Vanessa Kirby, and Zen McGrath in The Son (2022)

BoulderBoricua
May 29, 2023

A teenager's psychological trauma and the consequences

madanmarwah
Feb 15, 2023

A heartbreaking exploration of juvenile mental illness

Jul 2, 2023

Tragic yet realistic

Jun 4, 2023

Vert Sensitive topic

mommycoppel-688-476700
Apr 30, 2024
thinkMovies
Apr 2, 2023

Nicholas was just poorly cast

Jun 17, 2023

Very hard movie for mental health sensitive people

CarolineFR69
Mar 4, 2023

The story matches my experience

christurton-33475
Mar 31, 2023

Collateral Damage from the Sins of the Father

Jan 19, 2023

I tried so hard to like it.

Sep 12, 2022

My story and the importance of a single decision

May 25, 2023

I understand the message, but the gun, really?

creativeopinion-24777
Mar 17, 2023

A Depressed Son

berndgeiling
Jan 28, 2023

a scary movie, but isn't a horror

montanaromichael
Aug 6, 2024

Nothing is a real depiction of tghe real world

Nov 10, 2022

Very touching movie.

Jun 9, 2023

I found myself on the stepmothers side.

katiefanatic-791-306918
Nov 5, 2022

Extraordinary!

May 26, 2023
Jul 16, 2024

Didn't understand the negativity surrounding this movie

yogaadithya
Feb 22, 2023

Where is the character development?

Nov 29, 2022

I Don't Understand The Negative Reviews

varun-25071997
Feb 14, 2023

Negotiating grief and loss

glenaobrien
Jan 21, 2024

An embarassing trainwreck for all involved

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The Son (Venice Film Festival 2022 Review)
The Son (2022)
The Son (2022) Movie Review
The Son (2022)
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The Son (2022) Movie Review

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