Watch The Son For Free

You won't be disappointed!

Just perfect...

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Before reviewing the Dardennes brothers "The Son", I needed to check the trailer. The reason was simple: did they reveal why the character of Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) was so intrigued and focused on the kid? They didn't. And the trailer only shows a scene with his ex-wife asking if the boy is the "one" then bursting out of anger and fainting. The mysterious kid wants to help, Olivier shouts at him to stay away. The only bits of dialogue heard are "it's him" and "why do you do that?".So the surprise must come from the film. And if I could encourage someone to watch the film without spoiling it, I would say this is a movie about an ordinary man, a carpentry teacher in rehab school, who seems obsessed by a kid who comes from a juvenile detention center. He peeps over him for the first ten minutes and then decides to take him for his courses, the man is divorced and his ex-wife announces her remarriage and pregnancy. He doesn't take it in all stride but his reaction shows a mix of anger and resignation that doesn't strike us as odd. The film deals with the interaction between Olivier and Francis, a teenager who looks lost and tacitly looking for help.That's the situation, now, what do you make of a title like "The Son"? We've seen enough movies to anticipate that Francis is Olivier's hidden son. The Dardennes brothers are straight shooters and never use symbolical titles... or it's got to be about a father-and-son relationship, with a wound from the past and some potential catharsis from this relationship. Or is there something darker or more poignant in that "secret"? Viewers aren't given much time to endure the suspense as the revelation comes early adding suspense to drama like in a Cassavetes' film. And it works.After the success of "The Promise" and "Rosetta" (Golden Palm winner), the Dardennes decided to dedicate their next feature film to their fetish actor Olivier Gourmet. Like Gérard Jugnot for French Cinema, this actor looks so exceptionally banal he can be believable in any movie exploiting the reality of Belgian society in general and humanity as a whole. I believed the man was a carpenter all his life, I believed every word from him and I couldn't believe he was capable to do anything harmful or bizarre if it wasn't uncalled for. And that impression is crucial to appreciate the film because we're put in a situation that will call for a confrontation, sooner or later, the mystery is all in the "when and how it will happen?".As Gourmet said, you can play many expressions or feelings but "I don't know?". He was constantly asked to be neutral, not to let any obvious emotions slip because his psychological journey was tough enough and his interaction with (Morgan Marinne) so awkward that it didn't need to be overplayed. The angle taken by Gourmet shows how much an acting genius he is and how he truly deserved the award at Cannes Festival. Gourmet didn't play "I don't know", but played a man driven by contradictory forces, one driven by instinct and one pushing him back, revealing how rational and truly human he was. At parts, avidly stares at Morgan when he's not looking and get neutral when they make eye contact.And you have the camera of the Dardennes brothers following the man through the school's narrow corridors, the kitchen, the offices, the car, and getting the two closer then further then closer again. We all know it will lead to a resolution, if not a solution, but again with the Dardennes, the journey matters more than the destination and the ending has every merit including the most important one: to be satisfactory, conclusive and believable. And it truly consecrates the talent of Gourmet as one of the greatest and most underrated actors of French-speaking Cinema and the perfect foil for the Dardennes, ever since their first collaboration in "The Premise" where he played a flawed father. Interestingly, that film was about a kid trying to get off his father's bad influence, while "The Son" leads to a reunion.And I remember my initial reactions with the Dardennes, I naively thought they were only taking the camera and followed the actors like in a documentary. But "The Son" is full of master-shots and close-ups, many were shot multiple times at different paces to play safe as the Dardennes clearly didn't want to miss their first film where Gourmet as the lead (notice that the character was named Olivier in that sense so they could think of his own body while making it). Reciprocally, Gourmet couldn't ignore the Dardennes' camera either. It might look like cinema-vérité but the actors know where the camera is placed, Gourmet can make a gesture that shows good acting but that goes unnoticed by the camera and then the effect is lost. A Dardennes brother was the last movie I expected someone to point out the necessity to remember there's a camera behind.I mentioned Cassavetes, his movies felt improvised but they were not, he let his own truth implode in front of the camera but never forgot it started with an eye watching you, even Bergman never forgot that pact with the camera. And that's the essence of the Dardennes' talent as well, they don't tell, they show, they use acting and interacting as the vehicle of their plot, everything is left to our attentive eyes, it's all in way we see them... and even the climactic resolution is all visual. You can be a Nolan, a Spielberg or a Chazelle, but the minimalist talent the Dardennes showcases might be even more difficult to reach, because without budget, special effects and marketing, you can't take any chances, you only have the truth to hang on and that has no price.

This film really challenged me. It made me reconsider my well-worn habits of movie viewing, my lazily rendered moviegoer inclinations. Utterly mundane in its realism, a slice of life if there ever was one, "The Son" by brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, is a film about forgiveness, the kind buried deep within the dull folds of a man's tedious day-to-day existence. Oliver is a stern, expressionless carpentry teacher at a trade school for reformed youth transitioning into civil society. His thick glasses obscure his eyes, nonetheless his presence is startling in its austerity. A new student, Francis, becomes enrolled, one that Oliver takes a bizarre interest in, to the point of obsessively monitoring him both in and outside the workshop. At this point in the film I'm thinking to myself: "So is this guy a pedophile? Is he looking to molest this kid?" I had much to learn. As the movie progresses we learn that Oliver's young son was killed by Francis, an incident that happened five years prior, with which both he and his estranged wife are still coping. After learning this, all of Oliver's actions take on a different meaning. They are now to be scrutinized in a compassionate, yet discerning way. Up to this point I had been desperately trying to apply tried and true suspense scenarios to this film, which never did stick. Oliver treats this boy like a son, however Francis is completely oblivious to the man's knowledge of his crime. He pays special attention to the boy's improvement. He is demanding, yet fair in his disposition. He eventually takes Francis out to a remote lumberyard so that he may learn to recognize different types of wood. Now I'm all: "Oh man, he's totally going to exact sweet, sweet revenge!"Here again I was thinking too simply. What follows is an elegantly paced final sequence, one that moved me beyond words. There are many things that make this film work. There is no musical score, only the harsh sounds of power tools and clacking wood. There are hardly any cuts. A hand-held camera follows Oliver around voyeuristically at very close range, almost always over his shoulder. The viewer becomes part of the guilt-ridden cloud of claustrophobia strangling a broken man's conscience. The plot arc is pretty flat-line, but the amount of nuance in the acting is breathtaking. Most of the time Oscar and Francis are completely deadpan, yet the subtlest mannerisms imbue these characters with hyper-realistic depth. This film is slow, but skillfully so. In the first half we are subjected to the minutiae of carpentry instruction, slightly enticed by Oliver's strange behavior towards Francis. But once we come to learn about the murder of Oliver's son, the behavior that was once dull suddenly becomes lush with significance. I was rapt with anticipation from then on out, dissecting each twitch and gesture.This film really captivated me, but above all made me a more mature audience member.

Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are masters of authenticity, and their film The Son is no exception. A character study about a carpentry instructor at a rehab center who becomes obsessed with a teen student, this is an engrossing tale of human interaction. The brothers, as always it seems, approach their characters with a level of intimacy and intuitiveness that is mesmerizing in it's fullness. They don't feel the need to add dramatic scores or technical flare to their films, but rather they take a camera and just follow these people around, in this case the instructor Olivier, portrayed by Olivier Gourmet.It's hard to find words for how impressively honest their approach is, but I think that the authenticity these men are able to achieve is truly unparalleled in modern cinema. Many times they simply place the camera over Olivier's shoulder, following him around and placing us in his perspective, creating a sensation both absorbing and remarkably genuine. There's no strict narrative, but rather it's a study of this man and his personal demons, a study through human interaction and understanding that is emotional, quietly intense and always true.The reveal at the end of the first act paints a new light on Olivier that made him much more of a tragic figure than I had initially perceived him as, and the journey he goes down is always intense on an emotional level. Gourmet's portrayal is one of remarkable skill, again plugging into that level of authenticity that the Dardennes are so marvelous at, becoming this character in a way that few actors are capable of achieving. This is a story ripe for melodrama (it seems that most Dardennes works are) but instead they go for the most understated approach possible and it pays off in every single way, on levels both technical and emotional.

We're thrown into a situation loaded with mystery. Olivier, a carpentry tutor of some sort (like everything else, we learn more about that later), is anxious about something. He's moving around nervously, furtively, and appears to be stalking one of the boys at his institution. Is he afraid? Curious? Depraved? It's not until half an hour into the film that we learn the nature of his interest in this boy. Even then, his intentions are unclear. At one point, he looks in the mirror and he appears to be inscrutable even to himself. We spend every moment with him, but we don't know what he's planning or thinking, but he always seems to be measuring the situation. The tension is always present, thanks to the restrained but very physical performance of Gourmet, the deliberate pacing of story information, and the tight, menacing camera-work as conceived by the Dardennes. The action is gripping because we long to get inside Olivier's head, a character who is some balance of wounded, sympathetic and dangerous, and we don't know where the balance will fall. Perhaps at the end we don't know much more, but we know enough. A satisfying and engaging film from the Dardennes, who always seem to make so much out of so little.