My Son

Movie keeps the tension always high. Reminds me of a classic scandinavian thriller, but it's from GB/FR and plays in Scotland.

Meh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This film took a unique approach: James McAvoy is cast as the father, but the actor was given no script, only an idea of the story. The other cast members (including Claire Foy who plays the mom) had full dialogue. The concept is that the father is reacting in real time to the terrible situations and since McAvoy is a strong actor, it basically works. He and Foy play the estranged parents of a young boy who goes missing. Their despair and relationship issues dominate the first two thirds of the story, so it’s not til the final portion that any plot or tension develops. That’s when things get a bit hairy. There’s too much rambling and dialogue for most of the narrative and even the final moments leave lots of questions. This is an interesting experiment that’s moderately involving.

The flaws of this thriller are both its structure and the artifice of having James McAvoy leading the story and working the story without having a script. Everything is responsive on his part, and even despite his good work, you can't help but notice that on several points a better composition was needed. In general terms, it can't help but to provoke the sensations of being a tv show. Like the pilot of a limited miniseries HBO style mixed with a bit of the BBC. Certainly has the quality of a film in the production level, but it cannot advance beyond the ordinary plotting and execution.

Although the fact that James McAvoy acted with no screenplay — only reacting to the other actors' lines — is kind of interesting, given his performance here, 'My Son' has little value in almost every way. Director and co-writer Christian Carion never manages to create a riveting moment. Imagine a bland version of 'You Were Never Really Here' and you'll get an idea. After a promising start with a cool long take, 'My Son' takes the same path as any other missing-child film. There's an attempt to dig deeper into the catastrophic emotional consequences of a boy's disappearance, but a cheap thriller vibe gets in the way. Also, the screenplay is very messy. Some threads that seemed very important are never resolved, and the ending couldn't be more generic. And Claire Foy practically does nothing here, which is strange Yes, McAvoy doesn't disappoint, but another way for approaching a story we have seen a million times could've been more attractive.

McAvoy does a fantastic job but My Son ultimately is an incredibly unsatisfying movie that only lasts 90 minutes but really should have been closer to 70. The opening act is great and captivating, It's everything after that ruins the pacing. I mean there was 10 minute+ scene of McAvoy's character just going through someone's phone, Why? To pad the runtime obviously but it was totally unnecessary as that shouldn't have been any longer than a couple of minutes at the most. And stuff like that continues throughout the movie and it just kills any potential it had.

(Mauro Lanari) "Taken" with the script written on a coriander. Nothing else to add.