The narrative centers on four principal figures: Peter, portrayed by Hugh Jackman; his ex-wife Kate, played by Laura Dern; his current wife Beth, brought to life by Vanessa Kirby; and Peter’s 17-year-old son, Nicholas, portrayed by Zan McGrath. Kate notices troubling shifts in Nicholas’s behavior as he begins skipping school, smiling oddly at his mother, and speaking less and less. What might look like a common teenage moodiness quickly seems more serious, with Nicholas appearing distinctly different from his peers.
Peter, who has recently welcomed a second child with a new partner, initially seems to overlook the escalating tension. Yet he soon resolves to investigate. Nicholas responds with defiance, moving away from his father and his new household as light seems to fade from the frame around him. Off-screen whispers, accompanied by a somber Hans Zimmer score, hint that something dark may be unfolding. The audience learns only as the story reaches its conclusion what form the looming catastrophe will take and who will be affected.
Zeller’s latest film extends the lineage of its predecessor’s focus on fatherhood. The central discussion remains the strain of mental health, with a young actor Zen McGrath delivering a chilling portrayal of a boy whose internal turmoil is difficult to articulate to adults. The movie offers a fatherly twist in its ending that lands hard, leaving the audience unsettled and emotionally drained—already on edge before the final scene.
In Yanagihara’s A Little Life, the character Jude endures relentless pain and receives offers of help that never seem to bridge the distance between him and relief. A flashback into his past clarifies the source of the trauma, yet the work subverts conventional expectations by defying a neat, happy ending. Pain cannot always be banished, and suffering cannot always be cured.
Explaining the novel’s premise, the author expressed a desire to tell a story where the suffering hero cannot simply satisfy his pain. It centers on a protagonist who cannot find personal happiness by meeting universal expectations, and who sometimes seems misunderstood by those around him.
Son, Zellera’s film, follows a similarly afflicted hero: the young Nicholas wanders through the shadowed corridors of history, finding little comprehension despite family love and support. Why does it hurt so deeply? The question remains, and the plea for help is sincere but hesitant. This liminal state—trying to smile during the day, crying into a pillow at night—shines through Zeller’s visual choices, underscoring the character’s inner conflict. For Peter, the past and present blur as Kate refuses him entry to her life on the threshold, signaling that another life exists behind that door, a life where his old truths no longer apply, and their paths diverge.
Ex-spouses live in separate parts of the city, their bond strained by tattered bridges and fragile connections. Peter’s apartment mirrors this fracture, with sunlit bedrooms facing the city, while Nicholas’s room looks out at a blank wall—an unbreakable barrier that symbolizes the isolation he feels. The walls the characters erect around themselves become a kind of fortress, and as they seek support, a weary Peter leans on his father, a veteran who once faced his own fear and now returns to offer counsel, trying to shield his son from repeating past mistakes.
The elder Hopkins, who shares the screen with Jackman in a nod to the fatherly theme, embodies the tension between protection and responsibility. His counterpoint to Peter’s anxieties about his child reframes the crisis: guilt from a long ago moment lingers, and the fear of history repeating itself shadows every decision. Nicholas’s sorrow, visible in his eyes, remains a heavy burden for the family as divorce ripples through their lives and memories refuse to fade.
Upcoming releases also touch on similar subject matter, with a contemporary film exploring father–child dynamics through another lens. It presents parallel storytelling: bright, sunlit shores of happiness juxtaposed with the gray, confining spaces of the rooms where vulnerability resides. The shared heartbeat across these works is clear—depictions of parental love facing the greatest tests, and the stubborn endurance of unresolved pain.
Although Zellera’s film drew mixed reviews and did not receive wide critical acclaim, The Son stands as a thoughtful, emotionally resonant work that confronts a pressing reality. It examines human fragility, the many faces of pain, and the reality that depression does not arrive as a single, uniform phenomenon. This idea has echoed in public demonstrations once where people living with depression showed portraits of themselves smiling while concealing deep suffering. Zeller handles the theme with a level of artistry and sensitivity befitting a playwright, conveying the enduring truth that when attention fades, lives can fray and the bridges between people burn away, leaving rooms in darkness and a city that feels cold and distant.