Party night, skateboard accident, intensive care unit: the subsequent a car drive to the Swiss rehabilitation clinic becomes a journey of self-discovery for the overprotective mother as well as the hipster son. A road movie about responsibility, mother roles, and growing up.

The skateboard stunt after a night of partying was a bit too big even for a tried-and-true skateboarder like Jason. The spectacular accident takes him directly to the intensive care unit. Freshly out of his coma, first things first: the injuries are proudly recorded for his followers – after all, surviving testifies to one's own invulnerability. But Jason's worried mother, the successful photographer Marlene, has long since procured him a place in a special Swiss rehab clinic and is going to bring him there personally in her old Volvo – the trust is gone, control is better. Two worlds collide in a confined space: the chamber play in the car rolling down the German roads threatens to turn into a horror trip. Along the way, the two first stop by a friend who lives in a kind of hippie commune and then by another who advocates a completely different life model. Slowly, mother and son begin to realise how little they actually know about each other's lives. A cautious reflexion begins, on mother roles and attitudes of refusal, on growing up, and on being able to let go. The road movie could still become a journey of self-discovery.

Frederik Lang (16.05.2022)

Reviews and Commentary:

"Mother and son, the primordial motif lets images break free. On stage, in film. From antiquity to pop culture. Oedipus, Psycho, Terminator. The sexualised mother, the pathologically controlling monster mother that can only be ridden of by murder, the war-machine mother with a protective instinct, the maternal creature shooting up the place. Lena Stahl's subtly sensitive feature-film debut does not think much of this kind of over-exaggerated mother cult but nevertheless reflects upon the chestnuts maternal control-mania and care – the only thing she leaves out is the erotic mother. My Son is a quietly narrated road movie, one which permits itself rest stops and omissions and develops a specific surliness after the conventional beginning. The gaps in the conversations between Marlene [...] and Jason [...] hits a perfect bull's-eye regarding the generational incomprehension that so often prevails between parents and their rebellious children who are in their early 20s and want to do their own thing. What do we really know about each other? This unspoken question suddenly becomes palpable between Marlene and her son Jason."
(Gunda Bartels, Der Tagesspiegel, 18.11.2021)

"The way Anke Engelke, in the role of the mother, appears in the hospital – a small, fragile-looking person whose grief is written in her tormented face – immediately illuminates how great of a character actor this woman, who became famous as a comedian, is. [...] My Son is above all Marlene's film, and one already wants to celebrate the simple fact that films like this one now reach the cinema: with a woman over fifty (who is not Meryl Streep) in the lead role, and whose character is not fixated on the happiness of late-blooming love or the (solvable) problems of getting older. [...] The seriousness with which Lena Stahl, who also wrote the screenplay, explores the topic of 'motherhood' in her feature-film debut is beautiful. In times like now, when children are the most meaningful thing that most people can think of, the kitsch-free as well as disillusioned vantage point of My Son is just the right thing. [...] The superb Jonas Dassler [...] embodies Jason as a blue-eyed child-man, and is permitted to put his abysmal young charm fully on display. The viewer knows as little as Marlene about whatever is going on in the head behind Jason's curtain of shaggy hair. His grin keeps everyone at a distance. Even after his serious accident, he considers himself invulnerable, showing off his wounds like trophies and, by the looks of things, casually grinning away the consequences. He advises Marlene to ease on analysing and controlling and to just grab life by the horns – and he has a point there. It's great how rumpled, dishevelled, and weighed down by her fears Anke Engelke plays Marlene: a lot of unlived life shines through. But isn't she also right about how it just does not work without a minimum of control, without reliable partnerships, and without tender loving care from others?"
(Martina Knoben, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16.11.2021)

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

2019/2020

Production Year

2020

color

color

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

Road Movie, Drama

Topic

Relationship / Family, Illness / Addiction / Physical impairment

Available Media

DCP, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, DCP, Digital Film

Original Version

German (de)

DCP

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Italian (it), Estonian (et), Hebrew (he)

Note on the Format

DCP sind verschlüsselt

Blu-ray Disc

Subtitles

German (full), German (partly), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Italian (it), Estonian (et)

DVD

Subtitles

German (full), German (partly), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Italian (it), Estonian (et)

Note on the Format

DVD-Auswertungszeit: ab Oktober 2022 und nach Rücksprache mit dem LG

DCP

Subtitles

Romanian (ro)

Note on the Format

DCP sind verschlüsselt
rumänische UT sind nur auf 1 DCP (#5330)

Digital Film

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Russian (ru), Italian (it), Estonian (et), Chinese (short), Hebrew (he)