Family, already a complicated, often painful part of our lives, is made into something even more challenging in the dynamic, deceptively intriguing drama “& Sons.” Directed by Pablo Tropero from a script he wrote with Sarah Polley that adapts the novel of the same name by David Gilbert, the film is a flawed yet fascinating film — although any review requires withholding a key piece of information about the plot to preserve the genuine experience of discovery that it provides.
What can be disclosed is that, if you take the film fully at its word, a critical revelation makes the experience into something closer to sociologically-driven science fiction or poetically postmodern, where the people are more important than the invention it proclaims to be real. With strong performances across the board, especially Bill Nighy in rare form as a bearded patriarch who sets everything in motion when he shares a secret out of fear that he will pass before he can disclose it, it’s darkly funny in stretches before becoming something more melancholic when you least expect it.
This begins with a chaotic glimpse into the home of the elderly, possibly alcoholic writer Andrew Dyer (Nighy), who is spiraling out of control and seems to be in ill health. He hasn’t written anything in quite some time and never ventures outside of his swanky yet suffocating home. The only member of his family still around is his son Andy Jr. (Noah Jupe), who is the result of an affair the patriarch had, but he’ll soon call back his elder children, Richard (Johnny Flynn) and Jamie (George MacKay), for an important announcement.
The returning duo is not entirely thrilled about the call, as their relationship with their father is strained to say the least, but they begrudgingly go along with it. That is, until Andrew tells them that a key turning point in all their lives was actually built on a lie and that their half-brother Andy is not who they’ve been led to believe. As humorous befuddlement gives way to something more sincerely engaging, “& Sons” begins to ponder deeper questions of legacy, regret, and redemption.
Though frequently defined by loud moments of yelling and drunken fights, it’s the more restrained moments of “& Sons” that prove to be quietly flooring. Namely, whenever an outstanding Imelda Staunton enters the film as Andrew’s wife who left him after the affair, it finds a deeper emotional register.
Though the film’s predominantly male stars of Jupe, MacKay, Flynn, and Nighy all bring their own specific emotional notes to “& Sons,” it’s Staunton’s role as the matriarch that proves most moving. Whenever she comes into frame, she forces you to sit up and pay attention with her presence alone.
There are some other parts in the film that don’t quite connect, and the conclusion does threaten to lose a handle on the material. It begins to throw a lot at you and adds in a few more twists, though there is a prevailing sense that everything was already working quite well when not constantly trying to up the ante. Thankfully, these are ultimately small missteps in what is still a strong overall work that grows on you. The writing is frequently darkly playful, the direction measured and the performances all completely committed, ensuring the portrait of a family in crisis holds together just as they may all split apart.