It is hard not to compare Florian Zeller’s The Son to his 2020 film The Father – a devastating portrayal of an old man (Anthony Hopkins) succumbing to dementia, and his daughter (Olivia Colman). Both are adaptations of Zeller’s stage work, their titles a symmetrical proposition. The Son explores the struggles of depressed teenager Nicholas (Zen McGrath), who is traumatised by the divorce of his parents Peter and Kate (Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern).

Jackman is aptly cast as the confident yet conflicted Peter. He leads an enviable life as a successful commercial lawyer with a bright political future, and has a baby son with second wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) while still amicable with Kate. This all starts to unravel when Nicholas moves in with him, in the hope of getting better.

Nicholas claims his father abandoned him and his mother, and this stirs up unresolved trauma in Peter’s own relationship with his father, who did just that. Anthony Hopkins gives a perfectly austere cameo as Peter’s father. Peter is as much ‘the son’, as his self-assuredness crumbles and he is forced to question his own failings as a father. 

However, Peter’s counterpoint –...