The Son 2019

The ending of The Son is intensely emotional and leaving viewers with lingering questions about Nicholas’s fate. Throughout the film, we learn that Nicholas, a troubled teenage boy battling depression, ultimately takes his own life using his father Peter’s gun. Despite the parents’ efforts to keep Nicholas safe—initially placing him in a psychiatric ward and hoping for proper treatment—they decide to bring him home earlier than advised, believing he is feeling better. Tragically, this decision leads to Nicholas’s final and heartbreaking act of self-harm, as he quietly says goodbye to his parents and then goes to the bathroom, where the gunshot is heard. His words to Peter and Kate—confessing love and asking for forgiveness—highlight how much pain he was in and his desire to end his suffering.

The scene suggests that Nicholas’s death was real, and his family was unable to prevent it, despite their love and efforts. However, the film’s closing shot adds a complex layer of ambiguity. Peter, overwhelmed with grief and guilt, begins to dream of a different life where Nicholas survived and thrived. In this imagined future, Nicholas is living in Toronto with a girlfriend named Lena, seemingly happy and well-adjusted. Peter’s fantasy involves a more idealized version of their relationship, reflecting his deep longing for what could have been. Ultimately, this ending reveals Peter’s mind racing with guilt and hope—using his imagination as a way to find solace or maybe denial—making it unclear whether Nicholas is truly alive in that dream or if it’s simply a manifestation of Peter’s grief.

In essence, the film leaves viewers questioning whether Nicholas’s death was final or if the ending’s dream sequence is a symbolic wishful thinking by Peter. But based on all the evidence presented—his farewell words, the gunshot, and the context—it strongly suggests that Nicholas really did die, making the ending a powerful reflection on loss, guilt, and the impossibility of undoing tragedy.

In a muted, almost claustrophobic world where ordinary life is constantly shadowed by the lingering echo of a darker past, Laura—a once‑idealistic painter—has finally found a chance at renewal with her new wife. The couple’s ambition to build a fresh beginning is set against the quiet hum of a suburban neighborhood that feels both safe and oddly suffocating, a place where everyday routines mask a growing sense of unease. As the pregnancy progresses, Laura senses a subtle shift in her partner’s behavior, an unpredictable current that stirs the calm surface of their domestic life.

When their son arrives, the fragile optimism that sustained the couple begins to fray. The newborn’s presence amplifies every tension, turning ordinary disagreements into something more obsessive and fraught. The film paints this evolving dynamic with a slow‑burning, atmospheric tension, using muted colors and lingering shots to convey the weight of unspoken fears. The tone oscillates between tender intimacy and a creeping dread, suggesting that the couple’s attempts to protect their new family may be undermined by forces both internal and unseen.

Around them, peripheral figures such as the sympathetic neighbor Susan and the earnest police officer Paul hint at a community that is at once supportive and strangely distant. Their brief encounters with Laura reveal a world where compassion can be as unsettling as suspicion, and where the line between concern and intrusion blurs. As the story unfolds, the audience is invited to wonder whether the true horror lies in the couple’s strained relationship, the lingering shadows of Laura’s past, or something more inscrutable that quietly waits to surface. The film’s deliberate pacing and haunting visual language keep the tension poised, promising a journey that delves deep into the fragile bonds of love, fear, and identity.