Nobody
understands estate law like old French vintners, who feel duty-bound to maintain
their chateaus and vineyards as an undivided whole. It is gravely serious business for Paul de
Merseul to even consider cutting out his only son and presumed heir, but de
Merseul has always been more interested in his next vintage than his flesh and
blood. The scenery is lovely, but the
paternal relations get ugly in Gilles Legrand’s You Will by My Son (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
Driven
to maintain his elite reputation, Paul de Merseul has always been a shameless
manipulator. Learning of his
cellar-master François Amelot’s terminal cancer, he wastes no time finding
someone to replace him during the harvest.
It will not be his son Martin.
While de Merseul trusts his presumed successor with sales and marketing responsibilities,
at least to an extent, he has no confidence in his son’s nose. He briefly allows the approval-craving Martin
to audition for the gig, but it is only a cruel formality. It is clear de Merseul père had already set
his sights on Amelot’s son Philippe, who has recently resigned from Coppola’s vineyards
to be near his ailing father.
When
it comes to the harvest, the junior de Mersel can do no right and his childhood
chum-turned-rival can do no wrong.
However, old de Merseul’s unsubtle campaign to co-opt and perhaps even
adopt his potential protégé deeply wounds the dying Amelot. Martin de Merseul
is not very happy about it either.
There
is absolutely no cheap sentiment on-tap in YWBMS. Sugar-coating nothing, Legrand stages one
wince-inducing scene after another, almost to the point of emotional exhaustion. He stacks the deck so thoroughly against the pitiable
Martin, viewers have to feel for the poor guy.
Niels Arestrup is a fine actor, perfectly cast as the senior de Merseul,
but the character’s casual spitefulness is often rather jarring.
The
first rate ensemble will pull audiences in nonetheless, vividly conveying
decades old resentments and insecurities that toxically metastasize as a result
of de Merseul’s plotting. Loránt Deutsch
convincingly combines pathos and petulance as the spurned son, while Anne
Marivin is a surprisingly strong presence as Alice, his fiercely loyal wife. Yet as old Amelot, the veteran Patrick
Chesnais stakes a claim to all the film’s quietly heavy moments.
