Where I Watched it: Netflix

English Audio Description Provided By: Media Access Group

Narrated by: Zanthe Paige

I think this will become one of those rare movies I use to judge other people by when they decide to share with me their thoughts on this abomination. Truly, i hope no one ever watches it again. I support removing this from all platforms, and it can just be one of those things that some people saw but as time passes, it becomes a little more like The Day The Clown Cried. Maybe we forget it exists altogether. Like, this was given release, but Batgirl was dumped in a garbage bin.

This is offensively terrible. My review will contain spoilers, because I really don’t give a shit, and also this film is too stupid to call anything a spoiler. Even the non-offensive writing is so idiotic. How this was ever in the Oscar race is beyond me.

For example, after switching schools, our young male lead (the only redeemable quality, Zen McGrath) is introduced to some class full of dumbasses who are apparently about to take the SAT’s (which are mentioned in another scene), but also just learning about the 13 colonies. Florian Zeller must have been homeschooled. That explains a lot.

The rest of the film is the audience waiting for the tragic and obviously inevitable, as he is destined to kill himself. We don’t know this at the beginning, but since his family are functionally mouth breathers, he never had a shot.

The film opens with divorced parents, played by Laura Dern and Hugh Jackman, discussing their son. Dern is afraid of him. We haven’t met him yet, and the reaction she has to her own son might lead you to believe this is a school shooting drama waiting to happen. it’s not. Zen McGrath plays the most obviously depressed teenager on film, someone who isn’t a threat to anyone but himself, who is clearly withdrawn, and incredibly quiet.

The rest of the film is scene after scene of adults unable to recognize obvious signs of depression, Jackman yelling about how this whole thing is such an inconvenience to him, and missing obvious cries for help like self harm. This kid frequently talks about not being able to take it or deal with it, and his parents react with the same kind of apathy we typically reserve when we hear someone fell over the Grand Canyon while trying to take a selfie.

And let’s not let Vanessa Kirby off the hook either, because she has two shitty scenes. one where she clearly would rather eat broken glass than let this kid babysit his younger brother, because she has no interpretation of what depression means, or the other scene where her advice to him is to “not have kids”, because they ruin lives. She tries to pass that one off as a joke, but it’s a little like trying to make a black joke, and walk it back. you already said it. The words have left your mouth.

Which leads us to suicide attempt number one, which our Son survives. He’s put in a mental facility where doctors can finally actually help him, but that’s not where this film wants to go. Instead, Jackman knows better than actual doctors, removes his son from the facility, and takes him home where he almost immediately blows his head off. Jackman couldn’t even be bothered to lock his damn gun off, that we talk about earlier in the film, in the same house where his son first attempted suicide.

Then, while in the worst moment of the film, the death of his son, Jackman imagines a future where his son lived, wrote a book, and dedicated it to his awesome fucking dad. Because he’s still so incredibly oblivious that he thought he was still in the running for being a great Dad.

This film has a horrible depiction and understanding of mental health, and consistently presents the titular character as a problem, an inconvenience in their lives. Something that disrupts and upheaves in some kind of effort to tell kids “this is what your parents go through when you decide to be a morose piece of shit.”

i hate this fucking movie. I hate people who like this movie. We have long since moved past our understanding of mental illnesses, yet Zeller clearly has not. I hope he never directs again. Truly.

The only reason this film does not have an F grade, is because I thought all things considered, Zen McGrath really did try to bring something to his character. I felt so bad for this kid, being in this family. For two hours, i just wanted to give him a big hug. I’m sad that this is the movie that he’ll be known for, and I wish him the best. Everyone else involved in this project is on my shit list now. Hugh Jackman, laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, and Anthony Hopkins owe the world an apology, and I hope to never hear the name Florian Zeller again.

Final Grade: D-