THE SON
A powerful family drama about inherited wounds and adult consequences.
Should You Watch It?
Four stars means this is a remarkably effective drama, not an easy one. THE SON is powerful and often tense, with Hugh Jackman delivering a superb performance as a father confronting the damage caused by his adultery and abandonment.
The film asks how a parent’s choices can wound a child across generations. It also deals with self-harm, mental health issues, family conflict, foul language, and suicide. Its ending is depressing and heartbreaking.
If you are an adult prepared for difficult material and emotionally heavy themes, WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. Do not choose it for children or young teens.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESPeter is an upper-class New York executive whose past choices have deeply affected his teenage son, Nicholas. When Nicholas begins skipping school and asks to live with his father, Peter brings him into his new household, where a baby has just been born.
Peter soon discovers that Nicholas has been cutting himself. As father and son try to rebuild their relationship, Peter must face the family wounds he helped create.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means the film succeeds strongly as a drama. THE SON is powerful and often tense, building its story around painful family conflict and the consequences of adult choices.
Hugh Jackman gives a superb performance. The film’s emotional force comes from watching a son struggle to express what is hurting him and a father try to understand the damage left by his past. This is serious, heartbreaking filmmaking rather than light entertainment.
The Worldview
The film presents adultery and the breaking of marriage vows as destructive choices, especially because of the devastation they bring into a child’s life. Its moral perspective is subtle but clear: family decisions do not remain private when children must carry their consequences.
The story also connects personal wrongdoing to a wider family pattern. A visit with the grandfather reveals that these wounds are part of a multi-generational problem. The film’s focus is the painful inheritance of broken relationships, while its treatment of suicide and mental health issues makes the family’s suffering especially heavy.
The movie recognizes that a parent’s actions can deeply affect a child, but Scripture also insists that each person remains morally responsible before God: “The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father” (Ezekiel 18:20).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Light, subtle moral worldview condemns adultery and breaking marriage vows, and shows the negative, devastating effects they have on children
Foul Language
Seven obscenities (including two “f” words) and five light exclamatory profanities
Violence
Teenage boy is found having tried to take his life and spends a day or so under suicide watch in a psychiatric ward, a gunshot is heard, scars on teenager’s arm shows he’s been cutting himself, and movie contains a theme of suicide and mental health issues
Sex
Implied marital sex and there are references to past adultery and the breakup of a marriage
Nudity
Brief upper male nudity in two scenes
Alcohol Use
Some alcohol use
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
No smoking or drugs;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Teenage boy skips school for weeks at a time twice without telling parents (the second time he promised to keep going, but he lied), boy’s father and mother are divorced and living separately (the father with his former mistress, whom he married).
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
How can a parent’s choices affect children, even when the children did not make those choices?
Exodus 20:5–6 · Ezekiel 18:20What is the difference between feeling sorry for harm caused and truly turning from sin?
2 Corinthians 7:10 · Psalm 51:10–12How should a family respond when someone is struggling with emotional pain or mental health issues?
Galatians 6:2 · Romans 12:15Why do marriage vows matter, and what does faithfulness protect?
Matthew 19:4–6 · Hebrews 13:4The Final Word
THE SON is a powerful, tense drama anchored by Hugh Jackman’s superb performance. Its treatment of family wounds, self-harm, and suicide is emotionally demanding, and its ending is heartbreaking. For discerning adults ready for those themes, WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. Families seeking something more suitable should choose.
