[YOU WILL BE MY SON
screens Saturday November 30th at 7:10 pm and Sunday December 1st
at 4:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
There is no shortage of films in which
sons try desperately to win the approval of cold,
dismissive fathers, so YOU WILL BE MY SON
deserves at least some credit for finding a fresh take on the tried
and true premise. A few clever turns of plot aside, though, the film is primarily a character study of characters who aren't nearly interesting enough to warrant such scrutiny.
It
takes only minutes to establish that renowned winemaker Paul de
Marseul (Niels Arestrup), the father in this father and son tale, is
a horrible father and pretty distasteful human being in general.
The movie then spends much of the remainder of its hour and 48 minute
running time driving that point home. Paul has little use for
his son Martin (Lorànt Deutsch) whom he believes can't be trusted
with any real responsibility in the family business. Martin's wife
Alice (Anne Marivin) tries to get her husband to stand up to the old
man, but to no avail. It would seem that the audience is supposed to
empathize with Martin, but that's hard to do when his only defining
characteristic is a lack of backbone.
