Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
When a man's only son goes missing, he travels to the town where his ex-wife lives in search of answers. [To play a man whose life is clouded by mystery, McAvoy will not be given a script of dialogue.]
My Son is a Scottish thriller notable primarily for its extraordinary production gimmick: James McAvoy performed the entire film without a script, improvising all his dialogue in real time while the rest of the cast worked from a conventional script. This gives McAvoy's performance a raw, unpredictable intensity that genuinely distinguishes the film and earns high marks for both Acting and Novelty. The Scottish Highlands setting is well-used cinematographically but not especially inventive. The plot itself is a fairly familiar missing-child thriller with predictable beats, and the ending lands with insufficient weight or surprise to justify the tension built. The film's reputation sits in the 6/10 range largely because the conceptual boldness and McAvoy's committed work outpace the underwhelming thriller mechanics surrounding them.