Father and Son Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 7 Ratings

  • Summary: Father and Son explores the intricate dynamics of familial relations and the profound, ambiguous nature of love and loss between inextricably linked souls. (Wellspring Media)
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 17
  2. Negative: 2 out of 17
  1. Like most of Sokurov's movies, this oblique parable is mysterious, elliptical, irresistible.
  2. 80
    Less a story than a situation, the film contends with a difficult transitional period in the lives of its title characters, who face the growing necessity of getting some distance from each other.
  3. Reviewed by: David Parkinson
    60
    Sokurov's use of space, religious symbolism and raw emotion compensate for any sense of exclusion.
  4. Reviewed by: Deborah Young
    30
    Irritatingly devoid of irony, the film has an unintentional but unmistakable homoerotic subtext.

See all 17 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. KryshaA.
    10
    The coldness of this culture causes to perceive the warmth of this relationship (in flax nonetheless) between father and a son as homoerothic - nothing further from the truth. We all long for such intimacy and to have it with a parent and then to fly away is an ultimate nurtuing experience. Rarely we will get it here in US Maybe after exctasy... Expand
  2. JimR.
    10
    Once seen, I could not get this film out of my mind. So moving, I took a day off of work in order to see it again before its much-too-short run ended. A New York Times reviewer described it best: "[I]t has an intensity that surpasses understanding." The cinematography is gorgeous, the story is deeply moving, the characters are much more human than most Americans care to admit. Immediately shooting to the top of my list, I had to e-mail and thank Aleksandr Sokurov personally for his wonderful film... and happily received a reply. Expand

See all 5 User Reviews