Laura Dern and Hugh Jackman have been officially cast in Florian Zeller's upcoming feature, The Son. Zeller is best known for directing the feature film The Father. The Father starred Anthony Hopkins as an elderly man who refuses the care that his daughter (Olivia Coleman) is trying to offer him as he struggles with dementia. The Father was adapted from Zeller's stage play titled, Le Père.
Now, Zeller is adapting another one of his plays into a feature film with the help of Dern and Jackman. The Wrap reports that Dern and Jackman will play leading roles in Zeller's latest feature, The Son. Jackman will play Peter, the father raising the troubled son featured in the film's title, while Dern will play his ex-wife. Zeller and Chris Hampton will pen the screenplay for The Son just as they did with The Father.
The Son, or Le Fils, is Zeller's most recent stage play. The play had a successful run on West End, and now, The Son will be released as a feature and follow-up to The Father. While the characters in The Son don't seem to be the same as the ones featured in The Father, they appear to share the theme of struggling to raise seemingly difficult families.
The Son follows a man named Peter (Jackman), who has just started a new life with his second wife, Emma, and their newborn baby. His new, blissful life is interrupted by his ex-wife, Katie (Dern) who brings their teenage son, Nicholas. Nicholas now wants to live with his father, but Peter soon discovers that his distant son is a troubled kid. Peter strives to be a better father and tries to understand Nicholas as the state of his condition becomes clearer and tears on the seams of their family bond.
Source: The Wrap