The Son (Le Fils)

Released 2002
Stars Olivier Gourmet, Morgan Marinne, Isabella Soupart, Remy Renaud, Nassim Hassaini, Kevin Leroy
Directed by Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne

Olivier (played by Olivier Gourmet, who won the 2002 Best Actor Award at Cannes for his role) is a divorced man who teaches carpentry at a vocational training center. When a psychologically damaged teenager named Francis turns up in class, Olivier becomes obsessed with the boy. But when Olivier's ex-wife, Magali (Isabella Soupart), learns of the boy, she's horrified, which adds another cryptic layer onto this complex drama.

Summary by http://www.netflix.com

This movie was a big miss for me, but I would have loved it with a few tweaks. The thing that killed it for me was how the directors kept us in the dark for so long and gave us nothing to follow. When they finally told us why Olivier was obsessed with Francis, everything made sense but I felt manipulated. For scene after scene, we were led to think Olivier was a pervert, a killer, or something equally horrible until we finally learned he was really a victim. At that point, the scene that made me mad was when we had seen a close-up of Olivier sitting in his car undoing and redoing his belt. It was actually an innocent thing, but the camerawork made it look like he was going to masturbate in the car while watching the boy. There was no reason for this other than to give us one red herring after another, and all of this unnecessary manipulation ticked me off. That's too bad because there was a really good story here. The idea of this boy coming into Olivier's care is a potent one, and the movie dealt bravely and interestingly with Olivier's moral predicament. If I had known who Francis was in the very beginning, however, I would have been drawn into Olivier's dilemma. Without that context, I didn't know what was going on for the first 40 minutes or so, and I didn't care. With the context, it would have been poignant and involving.

How would someone react in Olivier's situation? I think it would be too emotionally demanding for most people to even try, but Olivier was a quiet man well in charge of his emotions. This situation was so difficult, because Francis was only 11 when he committed the crime. How accountable can you hold an 11 year-old? Olivier seemed to understand this and was driven to understand more about the boy who killed his son. Was he struggling with the thought of revenge the whole time, or did that bubble up after he heard Francis speak about the crime? Olivier gently prodded him with three questions. For me, Francis answered two of the three questions in such a way that I think I would have killed him. Saying he went to jail for theft and some other "bullshit" was the first straw, and saying he regretted the crime because it cost him five years in jail would have been the final straw for me. His other answer that it happened because he was scared was the type of thing a victim wants to hear, but the other two answers could push you over the edge. All of this worked flawlessly, and the ending was nothing short of sublime. So why only 2 stars? Because the first half of the movie is boring and manipulative! --Bill Alward, March 23, 2005