Why The Father (2020) Works So Well While The Son (2022) Doesn’t

Note that the video version of this review includes clips for reference and comparison.

Florian Zeller has directed two films thus far — “The Father” and “The Son” — but don’t mistake him for some new, up-and-coming filmmaker. He’s been around for a long, long time as an author and playwright. In fact, both of his films thus far have been adapted from his own stage plays.

I saw “The Father” right when it came out and was blown away. It was in my top five for the year, and I found it to be an all-around excellent piece of work. My rule for directors is to avoid forming any sort of overall judgment on them until I’ve seen at least two if not three of their movies, and let me tell you, that rule was well-placed in Florian Zeller’s case.

After loving “The Father” so much, I was, unsurprisingly, excited for Zeller’s next film “The Son,” which doesn’t share any characters or plot points but is still something of a spiritual sequel in a dramatic and thematic sense. While “The Father” was one of my top films of the year, “The Son” is tied for my lowest-rated film of 2022 at this point. So, what happened? How does the same writer, director adapting his own source material twice in a row culminate in two pieces of work at opposite ends of the quality spectrum? Unlike a lot of critics, I don’t…