Sometimes love is not enough. Even love becomes the problem. Peter, who left his wife Kate and son Nicholas, must make a vital decision in The Sono. Can he disown his depressed son again?
Actor Hugh Jackman has hunted for the role of Peter like a bloodhound, he says in Venice, where The Sono will have its world premiere on Wednesday. “As a parent, you are constantly terrified of making bad decisions, even if it’s about what you put in their lunchbox.” Jackman’s father Peter Miller has the real lead role in this third part of playwright and film director Florian Zeller’s family trilogy. Predecessor The Father delivered Anthony Hopkins his second Oscar last year; a subjective film that revolves around its own axis about the experience of a man with dementia who tries to keep a grip on the fits and snatches that form his reality.
The Sono is completely different, with an objective, linear plot. In New York, we probe the elusive 17-year-old Nicholas (Zen McGrath) through the powerless eyes of the parents. He is sad, self-destructive and increasingly aggressive towards his mother Kate (Laura Dern), who is close to him. When it turns out that Nicholas has been skipping school and cutting himself for months, he moves in with father Peter (Hugh Jackman), who has just started a second leg with his new wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) and is angling for a dream job. in Washington.
Nicholas lives in Dad’s skyscraper. Or is he playing nice weather, now so as not to disappoint Dad? For Chekhov fans, a shotgun is already hidden behind the washing machine, adding tension to this bleak plot. That shotgun represents failing fatherhood. It’s a gift from the narcissistic, selfish grandpa – a short but intense performance by Anthony Hopkins – who used to impose his demands, hopes and hobbies on Peter. Peter will never be such a father, because he does have an eye for his son. He will never shame, coerce, or humiliate him.
Though not as stunning as The Fatherturns out The Sono a strong, emotional film that tightens the knot of powerlessness, guilt and unspoken blame in which parents and depressed teenagers tighten. The despair when children lie and remain silent about their malaise. Because they know that their parents see it as a personal failure. After all, their job is to make their children happy.
impotence
What naive, clumsy parents, you initially think afterwards. Until actress Laura Dern points out at the press conference on the current epidemic of teenage depression, exacerbated by the pandemic. And you think about the response of the current generation of parents on social media. ‘Snowflakes’ are what today’s young people call; ‘they can’t stand anything either.’ We think we are better, but we are not that much better parents than our own parents.
Florian Zeller, die The Sono wrote five years ago, says it’s a personal story, but not autobiographical – though he has a 17-year-old daughter. “As a father, your instinct is to want to solve problems. You want to be strong and stable and reliable for them, but you can’t fix everything. Sometimes it is better to accept your impotence.”