Many movies get caught up in the aftermath of a disturbing crime. The evident and unquenchable desire created in the audience to see a wrong righted. However, “Your Son” is just as focused on the more realistically realized goals of seeking such justice as it is meditating on the trauma that leads one to search for it.
All the while asking the important question of “why,” it has come to this at all. The movie does a brilliant job of setting all of the emotional stakes up as it maneuvers the viewer into the passenger seat of a shocking scenario.
Jaime Jiménez (Jose Coronado) is a doctor with two young adult kids and a wife. He is close to his son and shares a slightly strained relationship with his daughter. He tries to be an active father to both of them the best he can, despite a consuming career.
Like many parents, Jaime suffers from being on the outside of a cone of silence his children insist on keeping. Subtle hints get strewn throughout the movie's run as Jaime’s questions are often left with no replies. Throughout the film, a chorus of questions come and go without direct responses. As demonstrated, that evasion has consequences.
What happens when children keep their lives obscured from their parents? Can a parent ever know who they really are? “Your Son” hits upon some unsettling truths.
When Jaime's son is rushed to the hospital having got beaten within an inch of his life, his parents are left heartbroken. The big question becomes who perpetrated such a gruesome act of violence and why. A father's quest to get those answers will upend everything about his life so far.
“Your Son” is compelling from the get-go as it thrusts viewers courtside in a journey that ends at another beginning. Throughout it all, the audience has Jaime as their engrossing guide. While there are others affected by the events, “Your Son” focuses on telling them from his perspective.
That lens does not provide the overarching insight, main characters in similar stories traditionally have. Due to that limited view, “Your Son” leaves viewers to draw their conclusions based on the same evidence that Jaime uncovers.
Viewers sort of stumble into these characters' lives and the film does a fantastic job of building that sense. There is only life from the opening on. As the movie leverages what it wants you to know with what you inherently suspect.
Unlike many movies in this vein, figuring out what actions Jaime will take is next to impossible to correctly speculate. “Your Son” breathes with a sense of real-world consequences that most vigilante movies tease without the feeling they will actually manifest. This movie does.
Thanks to the performance of Jose Coronado, there is no stone left unturned when it comes to the journey his character takes on his son’s behalf. “Your Son” is in many ways a one-man show focused on Coronado’s Jaime, and few could have pulled it off to the results he gets here.
As he does on Netflix’s outstanding series “Unauthorized Living,” Coronado captivates with vigorous intensity. One of his numerous strengths lying in his ability to be a source of unspoken emotion. Even when playing Jaime’s stoicism, there is always a deep well of it brimming beneath the surface.
The movie provides a unique perspective that brings up thought-provoking topics. A father's grief is blinding, and this is a visceral look at what it means to follow its navigation. “Your Son” probes vigilantism in a practical way that registers more than heavy-handed dialogue ever could. Seeing can be believing and this is the result.
Directed with a gentle hand by Miguel Ángel Vivas, this story is inescapable and haunting; especially the ending. “Your Son” probes the audience as to their own presumptions while challenging how a point of view can impact everything.
Where most movies’ endings are not necessarily their point, “Your Son’s” is what it is all about and building towards. It could have afforded to stay with it a little longer, considering its aftermath.
“Your Son” is not about revenge. It is about what it means for someone to say they would do anything for their child.
Rating: 8/10
As of April 2019, “Your Son” (“Tu Hijo”) is streaming on Netflix, along with other exciting titles.[Featured Image by Entertainment One/Apache Films]
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