‘Son’
Manager Florian Zeller
interpreters Hugh Jackman, Zen McGrath, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby
premiere March 3, 2023
Punctuation ★
Famous playwright, in his directorial debut ‘The Father’ Florian Zeller He provided a narratively astute and formally coherent depiction of dementia that it’s hard to believe that his second film—like its predecessor, which is a screen adaptation of his eponymous play—was created by the same person. in the lead role Hugh Jackman As a lawyer whose teenage son suffers from depression, he has no interest in seeing mental illness as anything more than a burden he must bear as a result of parent’s blood ties and his own insecurities as parents; for the rest his thesis seems to be that depressed people cannot get help and therefore it is useless to try to help them.
The absolute lack of sharpness exhibited by ‘El hijo’ the repetition of the plot, the rigidity of the dialogues and the staging and, above all, the artificiality of the world in which he lives; A world full of people who have no idea what depression is, what its causes or cures are, and therefore make the kind of stupid decisions that not only treat patients like aliens, but that can only lead to tragedy. Ironically, Zeller’s determination to go against common sense and logic to manipulate the audience’s emotions only curbs the heightened melodrama that his characters seek through an incessant sequence of crying, screaming, and pouting.