American Son
AMERICAN SON - NETFLIX
Dull, repetitive, unimaginative and docile. American Son, directed by Kenny Leon and based on the award-winning play of the same name, is a stagnant and flat racial drama that is heightened beyond belief and results in one of the most frustrating portraits of a one-note society.
There is a reason why such a property of American Son would be so perfect when executed as a play. Intimate, intense and emotionally vulnerable at every stage, with the audience unable to escape from that waiting room with characters Kendra (Kerry Washington) and Scott (Steven Pasquale). However, an entity of a cinematic feature does not afford the viewer that inch close intensity and feeling of anxiety. It can only produce something similar to those very events, replicating it but never recreating that terror that can be found in theatre.
However, the crux and basis of American Son is that very intensity and anxiety, which feels both undoubtedly forced and flat. The breathability and self-reflecting emotional pause do not have that same impact needed to incite the critical themes or buttons the film wants to push. Specifically, the racial ambiguity and ignorance from specific characters. The film is let down by both the performers and screenplay by Christopher Demos-Brown and equally as flat is the cinematography from Kramer Morgenthau that has no life or craft present.
The former is arguably the most impressive in a film that does not possess much in the wake of strengths. Washington puts forward a performance with undeniable gravitas but is given repetitive and regurgitated dialogue that negates the same point over and over again until it fills the film with no more room to develop and unbelievably and bizarrely defines the character as one-note in a film with so much potential in thematic weight.
The latter of which is the plainest and most docile piece of writing presented on this subject matter that an audience will see all year. Not one moment has an element of gravitas or poignant weight. For what is a staunch and troubling subject matter sadly evolves into a squabbling argument on everything imaginable a married couple would discuss. Contextually, there is a point to all this but it ultimately defines the feature over its most essential and influential subject matter: racial prejudice.
American Son is released November 1st, 2019.
