| The Good Son | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Joseph Ruben |
| Produced by | Joseph Ruben Mary Ann Page |
| Written by | Ian McEwan |
| Starring | Macaulay Culkin Elijah Wood Wendy Crewson David Morse |
| Music by | Elmer Bernstein |
| Cinematography | John Lindley |
| Editing by | George Bowers |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | September 24, 1993 |
| Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17 million |
| Box office | $60,613,008 |
The Good Son is a 1993 psychological thriller film directed by Joseph Ruben and written by English novelist Ian McEwan. The film stars Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood.
Contents |
In Arizona, 12-year-old Mark Evans (Elijah Wood) is playing a soccer game, until his father Jack (David Morse) appears and takes him to the hospital to visit his dying mother, Janice. After her death, Jack tries to console his son, but to no avail as Mark maintains the belief that his mother will return. Having been assigned for a business trip to Tokyo, Japan, Jack takes Mark to stay with his uncle Wallace (Daniel Hugh Kelly) and aunt Susan (Wendy Crewson). Upon reaching the Evans' house in Maine, Mark is introduced to his extended family, including his cousins Connie (Quinn Culkin) and Henry Evans (Macaulay Culkin). Mark and Henry get along at first, and Henry seems to be nice and well-mannered. In discussing the death of Mark's mother and that of Henry's younger brother Richard, however, Henry expresses an abnormal fascination with death, making Mark uneasy.
Henry continues to display increasingly psychotic behaviour, using a homemade crossbow to kill a neighbor's dog and cheerfully dropping a dummy onto a local highway, causing a pileup. Although nobody was killed in the crashes, or even seriously injured, Mark is horrified at Henry's actions and tries to tell Wallace. Henry drives him away, threatening to 'reveal' that causing the crash was actually Mark's idea.
Later, Henry implies that he will try to kill his sister. He then takes her ice skating the following morning and purposely shoves her toward the thin ice. The ice collapses and Connie falls in the icy water, nearly drowning before she is rescued by passersby and taken to the hospital. Mark again attempts to tell Susan the situation, but he is immediately dismissed as lying. Susan becomes skeptical of Henry, however, when she finds a rubber duck in Henry's shed. It had once belonged to Richard and was with him in the bathtub the night he drowned, after which it went missing. When Susan confronts Henry, he quickly becomes furious, insisting that the duck was his before it was Richard's. Henry snatches the duck back and throws it down a well near the house.
Mark phones his father and informs him of the situation and Henry's increasing psychotic acts. His father is also somewhat dismissive and tells Mark he'll be home soon. In the meantime, he tells Mark to go to Dr. Alice Davenport, the local psychologist, and tell her of the situation. However, when he arrives, he finds that Henry is already there, twisting the situation to make it look like Mark is the one committing the psychotic acts.
After Mark tells Henry that "Susan's my mother now", Henry indirectly implies that he will kill Susan. In a fit of rage, Mark grabs a pair of scissors and jumps on Henry, pressing them to Henry's neck. As Henry arrogantly eggs Mark on to kill him, Wallace enters the room. Seeing Mark about to kill Henry, Wallace locks Mark in the den to await Dr. Davenport. Meanwhile, Susan arrives and goes on a walk with Henry. Mark escapes the den and chases them.
Susan confronts Henry about Richard's death and asks Henry firmly if he murdered his brother, to which he implies that he did. He then runs off into the woods in fear of being committed to a psychiatric hospital. Susan chases him, afraid he will try to kill himself. She arrives at a cliff, which leads her to believe Henry has jumped into the water below. Henry suddenly appears behind her, amused at having fooled his mother yet again, and shoves Susan off the cliff. She narrowly catches a branch on the way down and holds on, while Henry picks up a large rock which he intends to throw down at her. As he prepares to throw it, Mark arrives and tackles Henry, and they fight while Susan tries climbing back on to the ledge. In the ensuing brawl, they roll off the edge of the cliff, and are caught by Susan after climbing back up to the ledge. She arduously hangs on to each boy with one hand, slowly losing her grasp of both Henry and Mark.
Wanting to save them both, and yet understanding she can save only one of them, Henry tries to force Susan to bring him her other hand so that he would complete his goal, while Mark tries to warn her that Henry will kill her and the rest of his family so that he can get his revenge. Seeing Mark's way of telling the truth and forgiving him, she makes the painful decision to let go of Henry thus dropping him to his death to save her family and to rescue Mark. She pulls him up, and they both look down to see Henry's dead body on the rocks below, which is washed away into the sea. Susan and Mark then share an emotional embrace as Mark saved his family from being killed.
When Mark returns to Arizona, he goes to a large rocky hill in order to be alone with his thoughts. He wonders about Susan and if she would again make the same choice to save him instead of Henry.
The film received a mostly negative response from critics, with a 25% overall score on Rotten Tomatoes.[1] Roger Ebert, who deemed the film inappropriate for children, awarded it just half a star, calling the project a "creepy, unpleasant experience".[2] He and Gene Siskel later gave it "Two Thumbs Down".[3]
"Here you have America's favorite kid throwing a dummy off of a little bridge over a roadway, causing an accident. That scares me. I think it's highly irresponsible to show a youngster doing something like that. I think if kids go see the picture, some are likely to imitate it." Gene Siskel interview on ABC News.
The Good Son received US$44,789,789 at the North American box office revenues, and another $15,823,219 in other territories, for a total worldwide box office take of $60,613,008.[4][5]
Elijah Wood won Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Young Actor, Macaulay Culkin was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.
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