Florian Zeller doesn’t make films, he makes birth control at 24fps.
Adapted from his play of the same name — and adding rich cinematic dimensions to the text’s ingenious structural conceit — Zeller’s brilliant and unsparing “The Father” shook people for how it simultaneously conveyed the confusion of suffering from dementia, and the heartache of losing a loved one to it.
His follow-up, which similarly originated on the stage, makes the writer-director’s shattering debut feel like a “Paddington” movie by comparison.Lacking any of the puzzle box magic that allowed Zeller’s previous film to rescue profound traces of humanity from the massacre of its mental illness, “The Son” offers a stiff and straightforward family portrait that emphasizes the senselessness of depression through the simplicity of its plot.
Is it an unusually honest portrayal of parental helplessness in the face of a devastatingly cruel disease, one that may
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