A Mother’s Son–Parental Doom?

In this two-part psychological thriller, A Mother’s Son,(2012) a teenage girl is found brutally stabbed to death in a small town in Suffolk, England.  On the night of her murder,  newlyweds Ben (Martin Clunes of “Doc Martin”) and Rosie (Hermione Norris), are grappling with  their four teenage children’s  angst.  

Any group of similar teenagers might be involved in serious and disturbing behavior.  But is Rosie’s  son Jamie (Alexander Arnold), from a previous marriage lying to her?  As the police investigation led by DC Sue Upton (Nicola Walker of “Last Tango in Halifax” and “Unforgiven”) continues, the family becomes further strained. Jamie turns for support to his biological father David (Paul McGann) who has a fraught relationship with both his ex-wife Rosie and with Ben. But Rosie finds she cannot suppress the growing fear that her son might be guilty of something truly horrific.  When she finds evidence that sends her reeling with doubt, her relationship with both her ex-husband and her lawyer-husband become tenuous.  Imminent erosion of feelings are witnessed through a lens focused on the difficulty and ambivalence of family life.

A Mother’s Son seems to have been one of the early explorations of a toxic parent-son relationship in the last two decades.  While a very recent exploration of vulnerable teenage male identity has been brilliantly explored in “Adolescence” and “Bates Motel”, this film sympathetically portrays  the difficulties of a second marriage’s impact on parenting teenagers.  The cast is impeccable and Nicole Walker makes the most of her minor role.  Clunes and Norris, in their roles as husband and wife, are equally outstanding in their unsentimental struggle to understand each other respecting the  emotional complexity of the moral demands of their situation!

Availability:  Netflix