It cannot be a spoiler to say that Paul de Marseul (Niels Arestrup), the hulking and obstreperous central figure in You Will Be My Son, dies. It’s not a spoiler because the very first scene is Paul’s casket sliding, with graceful elegance, toward its incineration in a crematorium.
Paul’s milquetoast son Martin (Lorant Deutsch) watches with disbelief, his face a harsh map of bruises and bandages. Even in death, Martin fears his father’s reaction at being cremated in a wood coffin, because his old man didn’t like that type of wood. All the while, operatic music swells on the soundtrack, indicative of the moment’s gravitas.
This flash-forward hangs like a pall over the rest of Gilles Legrand’s tragic and ominous film of familial strife. You’d think it would ruin the movie’s suspense, but it doesn’t. It’s a forewarning of its monstrous antagonist’s comeuppance, rendering the film’s mystery not “will he die” but “who will kill him” — because the roster of suspects will grow to include everyone in Paul’s general vicinity.
This opening epilogue also serves as evidence of the seemingly miraculous: Over the course of the action, Paul obtains the larger-than-life veneer of a tempestuous Greek god, a narcissistic Shakespearean king and an impenetrable dictator all in one, destined to harass his “loved ones” in perpetuity. His spirit is undoubtedly insulted that the very first image we see in the film is a representation of his mortality.
Arestrup, most known for his unforgettable role in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, brings a Brando-like intensity to his character, a mercurial vintner in France’s Saint-Émilion, where his family has run a vineyard for generations. With a refinement for shoes and cologne that matches his passion for vino, Paul lives in a rarefied world of wine and culture in which the two are inseparable.
As the annual grape harvest looms, things are going swimmingly — until Paul learns that his best friend and estate manager, François (Patrick Chesnais), has contracted terminal cancer. Paul needs to groom a replacement, and as much he would like to continue his family’s bloodline, he has nothing but contempt for his meek son, who slaves away in an admin position, and whom Paul believes doesn’t have the nose or taste for the job. Of course, it’s impossible to get a leg up when the boss is constantly looking down on you, shooting daggers from his eyes.
Instead, Paul pursues the winemaking talents of Philippe (Nicolas Bridet), François’ son, who works for Coppola’s vineyard in California and is back in France to be with his ailing father. Paul is a master manipulator with no scruples, and the more he slithers behind François’ back to adopt his boy, the more enemies he creates.
For Paul, everything reverts back to wine; he speaks in wine metaphors, and his own father died by collapsing into a vat of fermented grapes. And since wine is business, he’s literally a predatory capitalist, sucking the life out of his friends and relatives to keep his product flowing. As Martin and Paul’s relationship worsens, the film becomes less a wine film (parts of it will appeal to fans of Sideways and Bottle Shock) than another solid father-son conflict picture in the storied tradition of East of Eden, The Son and There Will Be Blood.
After an early Skype chat with Philippe in which he informs his son of his illness, François tells Paul how much he misses his boy. “It’s only natural,” Paul says. “He’s your son.” This irony will be lost on no one, but be thankful that for a film set in wine country, it’s the only line in Legrand and Delphine de Vigan’s script that is on the nose.
YOU WILL BE MY SON (Tu Seras Mon Fils). Director: Gilles Legrand; Cast: Niels Arestrup, Lorant Deutsch, Patrick Chesnais, Anne Marivin, Nicolas Bridet, Valerie Mairesse; in French with English subtitles. Distributor: Cohen Media Group; Opens Friday at Movies of Lake Worth, Regal Delray Beach 18, Movies of Delray, Regal Shadowood 16 in Boca Raton, Living Room Theaters at FAU, and the Koubek Theater in Miami.