Peacock drops trailer for unconventional missing kid thriller My Son, starring James McAvoy and Claire Foy
You can watch McAvoy's biggest acting feat yet on September 15
Film News James McAvoy
We’ve seen James McAvoy transform himself into a terrifying supernatural villain with multiple personalities, a classic Marvel character, and even a faun. But the trailer for Peacock’s new thriller My Son puts McAvoy’s award-winning acting skills to the test. You see, My Son isn’t your typical “parent searches for their kid” thriller. McAvoy wasn’t given a script, instead improvising his dialogue based on everyone else’s and using the little information he was given about his character. That means viewers uncover the mystery the same way the actor did.
“I’ve managed to have an experience that no actor gets to have,” says McAvoy in the trailer. (Though, we’d say that some actors actually have shared this experience; it’s what the The Blair Witch Project stars had to go through.) “I hope it will give the audience something really tangible that they can hang on as this thriller rattles along,” he adds.
My Son is directed and co-written by Christian Carion, created as an English-language remake of Christian Carion’s 2017 French film of the same name. In this version, McAvoy plays a divorced father whose son is missing on a camping trip, so he travels back to his ex-wife’s (Claire Foy) town to try to uncover what happened to the boy. The man soon realizes that his son isn’t just missing—he’s been kidnapped.
One thing we’re curious about is whether or not the ending will remain the same as in the original film. If it is, that kind of takes away the fun in trying to piece together what happened. But given Carion’s ambitious take on remaking his own film and putting yet another lead actor to the test of improvisation, we’re hoping this version gives us something new that is just as thrilling.
The film premieres on September 15 exclusively on Peacock.
29 Comments
That picture of James McAvoy, bearded, in profile made me double-take because I thought it was Jon Hamm.
Anyone else unable to see the phrase “my son” without in your head hearing Mel Gibson scream “GIVE ME BACK MY SON!!!!!” ?
Or am I the only one who remembers that movie.
No I do. Mainly because every clever radio DJ guy had a soundboard with it.
I just want my kids back.
“I haff no son…”
Am I the only person who thinks Daniel Day Lewis’s ‘I abandoned my child’ bit sounds a lot like Amos Diggory’s reaction to a pivotal Harry Potter scene?
Fuck I hate Kinja
Nope, it’s Lost for me.
“(Though, we’d say that some actors actually have shared this experience; it’s what the The Blair Witch Projectstars had to go through.)“
I’d say this is more like The Truman Show than The Blair Witch Project. The Blair Witch actors were entirely improvising off one another with each of them given specific story-related things they needed to do that day.This sounds like it’s one person improvising against a cast who are all fully scripted characters.
Also, presumably, this was otherwise a regular film shoot, which BWP was definitely not.
Is Feats of Acting a new Festivus tradition?
It’s really a dirty trick to not show an actor the script. For example, I don’t know how Mark Wahlberg has tolerated it all these years.
[Five minutes later]
“To ensure authenticity, we actually kidnapped James McAvoy’s son, and are holding him at an undisclosed location until the Emmy nominations come out.”
The real gimmick is that they’re letting him be Scottish.
That part coulda gone to a REAL Scot actor!
OCH AYE
It’s an interesting premise and has successfully enticed me to watch this, but I can’t help thinking how annoying it would be for literally every other person involved in making the movie if one actor didn’t have the script. “Okay! Now you’ll deliver your line and then the next line you deliver, please change your emotion based on whatever you think he might say!”
Yeah, I’m much more interested in the production process than I am in the story. Like, how do you do shots involving props that he has to manipulate in a certain way? If he does it wrong so that it wouldn’t make sense, do they give him a hint for the next take? And if it’s a continuous shot involving multiple people, on subsequent takes wouldn’t he now have information about what the other actors are going to say?
Precisely! Also how far does this extend? Does he know his blocking for each scene? What if he gets up to deliver a passionate monologue and totally ruins the eyeline? It just seems like an awful lot of frustration for everyone involved for the sake of a gimmick.
I used to listen to a radio morning show that did a mystery guest segment, except the gag was that the *interviewer* didn’t know who the guest was.One day, they got Fred Durst. It was glorious.
HA HA HA HA HA
This is a likely disaster of a show. Like interesting on paper but not very workable in execution. Cop Rock anyone?
This is the worst episode of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” ever.
“A groundbreaking filmmaking achievement!”…that’s going straight to Peacock
So it’s Australian comedy improv show “Thank God You’re Here” but serious. Haha that sounds pretty interesting actually.
In the end he learned that the real script was the friends he made along the way.