HIS FATHER'S SON REVIEW: More Than Just 'Okay' [3.5/5]
Dreamers in Toronto, Balancing the Weight of Differing Expectations
[Rating 3.5/5] - dir. Meelad Moaphi - 2024 - Canada - 14A - 1h 20m - Drama
His Father’s Son is smarter than its characters. It is content to keep its characters selectively ignorant in order to make a broad point. The struggle then becomes how to do justice to the point.
Lead actor Alireza Shojaei, who portrays aspiring celebrity chef and weathered cook Amir, has great chemistry with whomever he shares a scene; however, his parents, played by Gus Tayari and Mitra Lohrasb, respectively, are thieves. They steal every moment available to them, and His Father’s Son is better because of it.
There are films that are two-handers, where two leads share roughly the same amount of screen time and dialogue. This is a four-hander. Each family member (Amir, father and mother Farhad and Arezou, and brother Mahyar, played by Parham Rownaghi) gets his or her own set of issues.
Is there a balance to honesty and happiness? How much honesty does it take to push the result from happiness into sadism, or an ugly strain of self-righteousness. Honesty, like irony, is often used as a license not just to make a point, but to make it harshly without repercussion.
His Father’s Son does not try and make main character Amir, a cook and aspiring celebrity chef, seem perfect, even if that’s what I expected going into it. Frankly, I expected foodporn, like Chef, or Aloha. Those, this is not.
At its outset, His Father’s Son feels like a dramedy. But after a few different tangled interpersonal problems reveal themselves, the template is clear: Woody Allen, but do it in Toronto, with a more relevant subject matter backdrop, and perhaps more “2025”.
Amir desperately seeks fame in the culinary world. His less talented but equally ambitious brother, Mahyar (Parham Rownaghi), is his semi-wannabe business partner. When an unexpected family inheritance comes their way — well, specifically to Mahyar — their values are reflected by how they want to spend the money. Amir instantly thinks of their fledgling business. Mahyar, on the other hand, thinks of a Ferrari.
But Amir is not perfect, and not all that sympathetic. This is a wise choice, representative of first time writer-director Meelad Moaphi’s overall approach to plot and character.
It’s not like Amir is an anti-hero, he’s just, perhaps, not squarely what I thought was or would be considered the 2025 Progressive Male media target. He is handsome and charming, and knows it. He has these petulant Fuckboy traits typically absent at the centre of sweet male leads. He’s like Adrien Grenier in Entourage (derogatory), or Benjamin Bratt in Ms. Congeniality (compliment), except even more willing to blow up not just his life but his loved ones.
He smolders his way through problem after problem, and somehow we’re pulled in deeper. The tell-tale sign of a captivating leading man.
Despite the outer confidence, he’s still the more bookish brother. Amir is willing to be the Other Man in a relationship. Yet he’s simultaneously content to yearn for an attractive co-worker at his day-job. He’s the kind of guy who feels so flattered by attention from a coupled-up woman that he wouldn’t dare throw the opportunity to be with her away, even though he knows it’s morally wrong.
We get an answer for why Amir might be like this right as we’re thinking of the question, and right as he’s fumbling around it. Reflections on his parents’ past relationships shed light on his own, and how maybe those that raised him are not the faultless, thoughtful caregivers he thought they were. But he won’t stick around to learn the real important lesson; to see the good after learning the bad. The sensual, lively living room dances are lost on him. Okay, his parents aren’t perfect, but they’ve learned what works for them in the Here and Now. The same cannot be said for Amir. The same cannot be said for Mahyar.
He is how old, and says things like, “You ever think about investing? I’ve been reading a lot into it. Stocks, crypto. Shit like that…” Yeah big dawg. Investing should have been plan numero uno, with Manager of Aspiring Instagram Celebrity Chef Brother sitting around the cinco spot. These scenes share the same ugly qualities that make up those sanctimonious, condescending Questrade commercials.
As His Father’s Son progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer these sons have very little useful life experience. Dreamers? Check. Hard working? Sure. Intelligent? Hmmmm.
Sometimes His Father’s Son made me very sad. These are emotionally manipulative and manipulated people.
Presumably the title comes from the film’s notable father-son dynamic, but I wonder what exactly it references. Is it including the negative qualities? Is it a reference, instead, to perceived expectations? Is there an implied religious implication?
Good movie. Good title. Be prepared to get more than you bargained for with this one.
Maybe that’s the/a point.
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His Father’s Son opens in limited release June 20, 2025.
[Rating 3.5/5] - dir. Meelad Moaphi - 2024 - Canada - 14A - 1h 20m - Drama