Sometimes the movies that stick with you the most aren’t the loud ones, but the quiet ones that slowly seep under your skin. The Quiet Son (Jouer avec le feu), directed by Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin, based on Laurent Petitmangin’s novel What You Need from the Night (Ce qu’il faut de nuit), is exactly that kind of film.

The premise is deceptively simple: Pierre (Vincent Lindon) is a devoted father raising his two sons alone. Louis, the youngest, heads off to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Fus (Félix), the older brother, struggles more with life and drifts into dangerous territory, drawn to the violence and belonging promised by far-right extremist groups.

It’s a story of love colliding with ideology, and of how far a parent’s devotion can stretch when confronted with a child you barely recognize anymore. What surprised me most is the perspective the film takes. This isn’t a story that dives deeply into the mechanics of radicalization. Instead, it’s seen through the father’s eyes, at times frustratingly surface-level, but also painfully true. Parents don’t always get the full picture of what their children are doing; they only see glimpses, and the fallout.

As a viewer, you’re left to connect the dots yourself. You learn what Fus is involved in not by watching him in the thick of it, but by piecing it together from family confrontations and moments of silence at the dinner table.

Slow, but Emotional. The film moves slowly, almost deliberately so, but I found myself drawn in anyway. It illustrates in a raw, intimate way what it’s like for a parent to suddenly realize their child has veered into a world they can’t understand, let alone control.

There are moments of beauty, joyful family moments, quiet tenderness, that make the descent into conflict all the more heartbreaking. And yes, it got to me emotionally. I teared up more than once, feeling both Pierre’s impotence and Fus’s distance.

One thing I appreciated about this movie is that it isn’t a political sermon. It’s more about love than politics. It’s not interested in teaching you about extremism, nor is it a study of how radicalization works. Instead, it’s a story about family, love, and loss. It’s about what happens when the people we’ve known all our lives suddenly become strangers, and how powerless and painful that can feel.

The Quiet Son doesn’t give easy answers, and it doesn’t try to. What it gives us instead is something more intimate. A portrait of love stretched thin, of a father grappling with the unrecognizable face of his own son.

It’s quiet, slow, and unpretentious, but it’s also beautiful, and deeply moving, at least I find it so. If you’ve ever wrestled with the fear of losing someone you love to something beyond your reach, this one will linger with you long after the credits roll.

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