My Son

My Son is an improvised child abduction thriller. It is a remake of a French movie called Mon Garçon.

Edmond Murray (James McAvoy) frequently works abroad a consultant for an oil company. His ex wife Joan (Claire Foy) calls him back to Scotland when Ethan his 7 year old son is snatched from a campsite.

Edmond suspects Joan's new boyfriend to be behind the abduction as he behave strangely. In fact Edmond beats him up and the police arrest him.

The man in charge of the investigation Inspector Roy (Gary Lewis) cannot find a substantial lead and is soon taken off the case. Edmond though does find a trail through some mobile phone footage. One that leads to a child abduction ring.

The movie has the scuzzy feel of 8MM with elements of Taken as Edmond is out to get revenge with whatever he can lay his hands on. A blowtorch in one scene.

The main selling point of My Son is that McAvoy had to improvise his script. He was only given a basic outline of his character and the plot. Although I presume he took a sneaky peak at the French version.

It does give the movie an underwritten feeling. Like the story is not fully developed and it shows in the final product.

... there's just not a lot in this film to become emotionally or intellectually intrigued... the two leads do a decent job with what they're given, but overall it's really nothing more than how most people are rating it.

James McAvoy was fantastic as always but I was left asking a few questions in the end. Aspects of the plot were only hinted at but not explored properly.

McAvoy acting is as ever really good but he's struggling to make any real mark as the script is lacking.

So many interesting details are left hanging.

His background and work is hinted at being involved and then dropped just as quickly. Shame as this really started to make you wonder what was going on? What does he do? Who are these peopke so powerful they can get the highest levels of the Police to shut down investigations? All these are dropped and never mentioned again!? His offices being ransacked in America and hard drives, paperwork etc all confiscated ......why? Never mentioned again.

Absolutely pointless and tragic as it would have made for a much better film if had followed and answered a few questions.

We are left with a simple child abduction ring with no explanation or detail and it goes from one long drawn out scene of walking over terrain to driving in rain to clearly oad out the runtime.

The wife gets hardly any screen time to utilise her acting skills. Her boyfriend acts so odd which isn't explained neither is the fact Ethan (the Son) had no bedroom in the new house?? Why not?

The loose ends didn't work or were ended because didn't know where to go with them in lazy writing or either very badly written red herrings.

McAvoy played it as well as he could. Didn't suddenly become an action hero and fight them all but handled situations realistically and basically just got lucky. Which can happen I guess. The shots of his taking the indirect routes to get to the houses were dragged out and seemingly pointless as his ex got there with no problem.

Massively disappoint film. Especially the ending that just made you feel you'd been cheated.

Lazyily bad writing although good acting, beautiful if dreary landscapes and more questions than answers. In fact was there any answers at all?

Unsure if original was this bad but as same story and director I'm assuming it is......and had even lower feedback scoring.

Avoid.

My Son (2021) is a mystery thriller about a divorced father trying to deal with the situation of his son going missing. I love James McAvoy and Claire Foy, so seeing them starring in a movie together made me curious to check this out, and also apparently the fact that McAvoy wasn't given a script or dialogues and instead improvised throughout the movie.

Now, it's not a groundbreaking achievement in filmmaking or anything like that, or at least I didn't feel it. The way the movie is penned and directed, McAvoy's improvisation doesn't really stand out even if the performances from both the main actors were strong, especially McAvoy's but that's hardly a surprise since he's good-great in pretty much everything I've seen him in.

It's slowly paced but it's also short so it doesn't get boring and there are sections that are thrilling or tense as you do start to care for the main character but they are too few and far between. Since you're going through the story from the father's POV, when things get interesting, you're strapped up for the ride but the movie hardly touches on the plot points it sets up as the story unfolds and just sorta wraps it up, which leaves you wanting for more.

It sure does look pretty, fully utilizing the Scotland Highlands in its cinematography (I hope I can visit it one day). The soundtrack was also pleasing and fitted the mood/tone.

Overall, My Son is a small mystery thriller that didn't give me enough for me to say it's particularly good but at the same time, it had enough material in it for it to be a passable watch. Give it a shot if you're curious or are a fan of James McAvoy. And if I were to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10.