American Son

Director: Kenny Leon
Starring: Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, Eugene Lee
Running Time: 90 min.
Rating: NR

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

If something's done well, it works. If not, it doesn't. Despite contrary opinion, there's really no reason to believe that adapting a single location, four-person Broadway play to the screen can't work because one's a play and the other's a movie. It depends. So depending upon who you ask, Kenny Leon's controversial, polarizing adaptation of Christopher Demos-Brown's American Son is either one of best or worst Netflix releases in the past year. Reaction seems to indicate there's no middle ground with it, which is fitting given its head-on tackling of the topics of race relations and police brutality. And yet strangely, that's exactly where this seems to land. 

Billed as a "Netflix Television Event," the script loudly announces what it will be about from the opening title card, and the volume and temperature only rises from there, giving us a 90 minutes that's equal parts infuriating and thrilling. A lot can happen when you lock a couple of people in a room and self-contained dramas can carry a lot of power if everyone on board can deliver on it. Here, it's the same cast of the Broadway play transporting their roles to the screen, with similarly satisfying results. And I'm not talking about whether you liked it or not, detested the characters, or were angered watching it. It's challenging rather than enjoyable, but based strictly on execution, it's difficult to argue that more could have been done with the situation or players involved. If anything, the completely stripped down approach only heightens the tension, creating a claustrophobic powder keg on the verge of explosion for an hour and a half.

Is it all "about" race? Depends which character you ask since two out of the four would probably say it isn't. While no one will agree on the moralities surrounding the central incident or its fallout, everyone would likely concur that the prickly personalities of those involved don't help, regardless of how much of that stems from race or other socioeconomic factors. It's the dramatic equivalent of continuously watching characters pour gasoline on a fire, and with maybe one exception, it isn't their finest hour as people. But it's impossible not to care about who they are and their beliefs and actions, making for an insightful, compelling experiment from start to finish.

Kendra Ellis-Connor (Kerry Washington) is spending a stormy night in a Miami police station awaiting news on the whereabouts of her recently missing 18-year-old son, Jamal. The officer on duty, rookie Paul Larkin (Jeremy Jordan) is waiting for a report, but claims his hands are tied in obtaining more information until supervising Lieutenant John Stokes (Eugene Lee) arrives at the station. As time passes and it becomes clear to Kendra that Larkin may know potentially troublesome information about Jamal he's not sharing, she presses him, and their already shaky interactions rapidly deteriorate, with all of his attempts to calm her down and diffuse the situation leading to more yelling and arguing. The arrival of Jamal's father and Kendra's estranged husband, FBI agent Scott Connor (Steven Pasquale) only causes more turmoil, as the parents furiously litigate who's to blame for the collapse of their marriage and their biracial son's recent rebellious behavior. But they'll have to put differences aside for at least one night because Lt. Stokes is on the way, and with him should come news about Jamal.

This will be a tough watch for many, mostly because we're given front-row seats to an extremely uncomfortable situation that highlights a hot-button social issue that most would probably rather not talk about at all. Or even watch others speak about it since such a discussion could invariably lead to the massive communication breakdown depicted here. And it's hard to begrudge any viewer for wanting to sit that out, or write it off as preachy because of where it's coming from, even if the dangers of such a routine dismissal are addressed and well-handled by the screenplay, especially in regard to the husband character.

The most passionate reactions to the material will undoubtedly be centered around Washington's Kendra, who we join in full hysterics over her missing son in the opening scene, before she's angered and insulted by Larkin's admitttedly dopey questions, most of which can be interpreted as revolving  directly and indirectly around the fact that Jamal's a young Afican American male. He's sort of a jerk and massively inexperienced at the same time, while she's completely ditched any filter in dealing with him, assuming it'll get her nowhere. She also thinks he's prejudice at best and racist at worst, with the performers doing a good job showing how even the most innocuous of exchanges can be tinged with institutional racism, regardless of the intentions. When Kendra goes off on him, viewers may be left wondering whether the stress of the situation and this officer's non-reaction have brought previously concealed feelings and tensions to the surface or this is just par the course for her. Or maybe even somewhere in between. Her estranged husband Scott's arrival does eventually some light on that, as we wonder how these two ended up together at all.

Washington's performance is completely free of vanity and self-censoring, never hesitating to take Kendra to uncomfortably cringy places that make us feel just how unsettling this entire ordeal really is. Jordan delivers opposite her as the rookie in over his head, either unwilling or unable to cut through the red tape necesssary to get some answers. It's surprising how much the husband's presence changes the dynamic for both, with Larkin almost immediately taking a much more measured approach and his demeanor instantly changing.

Scott Connor will be a familar character to many and what Pasquale best captures in him is this entitled, and arrogantly dismissive stance to have Jamal see and tackle the world as he does, which is interpreted by Kendra as an attempt to suppress their son's blackness. Over the rest of runnning length they argue about everything from his grades, to his friends and even his birth name. It's a lot, but everything seems to circle back to Scott seeing the world as a white man and her as a black woman. While that's a fact that multiple years of marriage won't change, we soon realize the problems in their marriage may go well beyond that. While I wouldn't dare spoil it, the impact of Lietenant Stokes' on the scene takes the wind out of everyone's sails and isn't what you'd expect, nor is Eugene Lee's wise, level-headed performance and eventual explanation of what's happened, culminating in a gut punch of an ending that isn't easy to shake.

Director Kenny Leon does really confine the proceedings to this police station, resisting the  temptation to add flashbacks, with only one unsuccessful exception that seems out of step with the rest of the film and doesn't play all that well. For the most part though, everything else does, and even as the difficult material doesn't make it the most pleasant watch in the world, there's rarely a scene that doesn't have something important to say, whether or not you agree with any of it. And without us laying eyes on him, Leon does a great job painting a clear, vivid picture of who Jamal is through dialogue alone, even if we'll never completely know.

Netflix is frequently criticized as a dumping ground of original, unadvertised releases so adapting stage plays into 90 minute features may not be such a bad idea. For them, American Son must have seemed like a no-brainer, not mention a whole lot easier and cheaper to produce than their usual fare. It would be so easy to write this off as liberal Hollywood nonsense, and while we can't be sure of the original plan, the material zigs and zags in enough directions to shut those potential complaints down, leaving a lot up to the viewer. Or at least those willing to take the ride.