The Son: Hugh Jackman shines in devastating drama that probes depression, guilt, and duty

Playwright Florian Zeller’s third instalment – and second film – in a cycle that includes The Father is a muscular, devastating drama that ought to have featured more prominently in the protracted “awards conversation”.

Alongside Till, it’s the closest thing to an old-fashioned, grown-up Oscar Best Picture winner. Tellingly, neither film is in the reckoning.

It has form too. Two years ago, Zeller and Anthony Hopkins took home Academy Awards (best-adapted screenplay and best actor) for The Son’s predecessor. Hopkins returns, briefly and memorably, as a different sort of paterfamilias. “Your daddy wasn’t nice to you. So what?” the Oscar-winner snaps mid-tirade at Hugh Jackman’s Peter.

That is the lesser of the familial psychodramas in Zeller’s wrenching screenplay, composed with notes on English translation from Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons).

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Peter is a slick, big-city lawyer who lives in a glass-panelled Manhattan apartment with Beth, his glamorous second wife (Vanessa Kirby), and their newborn son.

A lucrative job offer to manage a DC politician’s campaign lands around the same time that Peter’s depressed 17-year-old son, Nicholas (superb newcomer Zen McGrath) appears on his doorstep.

Nicholas’s mother (Laura Dern) is at the end of her tether. It later emerges that the teen has been skipping school for a month. “I’m not made like other people,” explains the vulnerable, unsettling Nicholas. “I’m in pain all the time.”

Peter, a suddenly repentant absent father, frantically juggles these competing families, his wounded ex-wife, his vaguely insecure second wife, work demands, and a crippling sense of responsibility. He clings to the idea that Nicholas is going through a phase: “Have you ever known a teenager radiate happiness?” he reasons.

One thundering Chekhovian device aside, Zeller’s drama successfully probes a wide spectrum of depression, guilt, and duty.

Jackman revisits the shifty charisma of The Contender and the grief he explored in The Fountain. He has excellent scene partners. Ben Smithard’s unshowy camerawork and Hans Zimmer’s unobtrusive score sagely stay out of the cast’s way.