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.

For a movie that dragged in places the ending was a bit disappointing. Like they couldn't take a few minutes to really sus out everything that was really going on, just a quick de-brief in a car ride and no explanation of what happened with his job.

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.

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.

It's a movie that may hold promise, but eventually falls.

The movie starts well, with a lot of intrigue and suspense, but then it becomes very absurd due to the conveniences of the story, very predictable and because the way things are resolved so absurdly and easily. There is a lack of character development as you can't empathize with them or the situations they go through, it seems that the characters don't learn anything after going through very difficult situations, the acting doesn't help much either as at a certain point they become exaggerated and very dramatic. There is also no good development of the antagonists, and the constant camera blurs ruin this movie more. The locations where it was filmed are very beautiful, it is understood that several scenes are very limited or fall short due to the low budget, the story is not very original, but I think that the important thing is its execution, something that this film does not fully achieve.

This movie builds a good mystery but it gets ruined as the plot progresses and when its twist appears, giving way to a not-so-exciting and predictable ending, turning this movie into something very generic and without much innovation.