You Will Be My Son Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

You Will Be My Son Blu-ray Movie Review

A fine vintage.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 26, 2014

The French take their wine very seriously. I didn’t realize quite how seriously until last summer, when my wife, sons and I took a car trip through Normandy to visit some of the small villages my father had helped to liberate in World War II. On the way, we stopped at what might be termed a “truck stop” in America, though this was (not to state the obvious) France, and the differences were legion. Not only was this a glistening, high tech wonderland, completely without the kind of greasy, grimy ambience that usually accompanies most of these places in the United States, there were not one but several gourmet restaurants and (here’s the taking wine seriously part) an actual honest to goodness sommelier at one of them eager to advise the passing motorist on whether a Syrah or Chablis would be more appropriate for the journey ahead. (There is evidently not only no proscription against drinking and driving in France, it seems to actually be encouraged.) While there’s a Freudian aspect to You Will Be My Son (Tu Seras Mon Fils in its native French), the Gallic attitude about one of its prized local products is front and center in this low key but often emotionally intense drama about a French vineyard owner and his almost obsessive zeal in controlling the output of his winery, something that plays into his often contentious relationship with a son whom he feels hasn’t the technical expertise to carry on his legacy. The man decides to look for a replacement, as it were, and thus a modern retelling of the Prodigal Son is born, albeit one that (according to the film’s creators themselves) also owes a debt of gratitude to a similar mentoring relationship portrayed in Into the Wild (as odd as that may sound).

Paul de Marseul (Niels Arestrup) is an old school vineyard owner in St. Emilion whose wines are renowned (and spendy). Paul has had a vice like grip on the running of his huge estate for most of his adult life, having inherited the grounds from his father, who died in 1963 under somewhat tragic but slightly comical circumstances. Paul’s son Martin (Lorànt Deutsch) has gone to college to get a degree in vineyard management, and seems to have a solid business head on his shoulders, but he does not rise to Paul’s “artistic” vision for what is needed to really produce a fine wine. The testy, distant relationship between Paul and Martin is perfectly summed up in the film’s opening sequence, when a visiting journalist asks to snap a picture of the father and son “team” outside in front of some of the grapevines, and Paul, almost laughing at the thought, absolutely refuses.

Things take a precipitous turn when Paul finds out his longtime estate manager François (Patrick Chesnais) is dying from pancreatic cancer. François has been the perfect partner for Paul, working the fields and providing a lifetime of expertise in horticulture and harvesting techniques. Martin volunteers to take François’ place—after all, he has a degree— but again Paul simply scoffs, at least at first. Martin at least has the comforting arms of his beautiful and supporting wife Alice (Anne Marivin). Alice obviously dislikes Paul intensely and in one extremely discomfiting scene, it appears that Paul might have carnal designs on the pretty young woman.

Paul informs François’ son Philippe (Nicolas Bridet), who is in Napa Valley working as the manager of the Coppola (yes, that one) Vineyards, about his father’s terminal illness, and within just a day or two, Philippe leaves his stateside job and returns home to the estate where he was raised and learned the art of winemaking. Within a frighteningly short amount of time, Paul decides that Philippe is his true “heir” in terms of being able to carry on the vineyard’s artistry, and he forsakes his own biological son in favor of this new young man who seems to be better suited to carrying on Paul’s legacy. Out of this quintet of people (François’ wife also plays into the chain of events) You Will Be My Son mines an perhaps unexpected amount of character drama, all of it suffused with the beauty of the French countryside.

And in fact while the distance between Paul and Martin would seem to be the focal conflict of the film, You Will Be My Son ever so slowly divulges that the growing estrangement between François and Philippe is just as important. It is indeed this relationship which proves to be the crux of the film’s defining climax. Before things get to that point, however, a couple of surprising revelations cast a whole new light on Paul’s claims to his legacy while also perhaps illuminating why he is so cavalier about dissociating himself from his own son (late in the film he offers to adopt Philippe, allowing a transfer of assets, a situation which French civil law allows even when the adoptee is not an orphan or in need of parents).

You Will Be My Son, like any good fine wine, takes a while to fully ferment and reach its maturity, but those with patience will be rewarded with an unusually satisfying experience. Writers Gilles Legrand and Delphine de Vigan create a handful of very believable, viscerally compelling characters, all of whom are brought to life by very accomplished performers. Structurally, the film has one major misstep, offering the “ending” of the story up front, and then backtracking to recreate what got everyone to that point, but otherwise this is is a heady film, full of flavor and, as Paul himself describes one of his wines, an earthy undertaste.

You Will Be My Son Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

You Will Be My Son is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.41:1. Directed by Gilles Legrand and lensed by Yves Angelo (Tous les Matins du Monde) is an often stunningly beautiful film that is suffused with a soft amber sunlight that spills gently over verdant green vineyards. The slanted light that permeates this film creates a diffuse ambience that might be mistaken for inherent softness, but close-ups put the lie to this, delivering a sharp, accurate image and excellent fine detail. It does appear that the film may have been push processed in several key darker sequences (many of them in Paul's "secret cellar"), and those have the expected chunkier grain apparent.

You Will Be My Son Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

You Will Be My Son is generally a rather quiet film (save for one or two outbursts, mostly by Martin), and so its DTS- HD Master Audio 5.1 track (in the original French, with optional English subtitles) really only springs into surround life with its copious though often subtle ambient environmental noises and most especially with regard to Armand Amar's lovely score (which utilizes some classical source cues culled from the likes of Vivaldi). Fidelity is excellent throughout this track, which is on the low key side but very effective.

You Will Be My Son Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Lorant Deutsch and Gilles Legrand (1080p; 14:37) covers quite a bit of ground, from Deutsch's character to the rest of the cast.


• Deleted Scenes (480i; 9:06) have a timecode caption.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:25)

You Will Be My Son Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a relatively unexpected and almost dastardly turn that You Will Be My Son takes about two thirds of the way through the film, a turn which leads to an almost melodramatic chain of events that would seem on their surface not to really fit in with the otherwise slow, stolid progression of character depicted up until that point. It's to the credit, then, of both the co-writers and the director (who was one of the writers as well) that tonally this film never feels like it's suddenly lurched into something peculiar. This is a finely wrought examination of father-son relationships within a rather rarified environment, and as such it should appeal equally to those with a preference for Art House fare as well as those simply eager to watch some family dysfunctions play out in unusually visceral ways. Capping this all of is an absolutely luminous physical production and cinematography, both of which pop extremely well on this Blu-ray. You Will Be My Son comes Highly recommended.