In the Broadway play American Son, an estranged couple must reunite at a police station to seek help in finding their missing son, who went missing after a traffic stop. It sounds like the makings of a fairly genric thriller but there’s so much more to it, with issues of race, police brutality, and more into something far more complex and deeply unsettling. Honestly, it would make for tough viewing on the big screen, which is why it’s good to see the play has been adapted for Netflix.
Directed by the play’s director Kenny Leon, and starring much of the original cast including Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, and Eugene Lee, American Son is different because the central couple are interracial and their child of mixed-race. It looks as if Leon will be very faithful to the stage version, both in terms of how the movie was shot but also by sticking to the dialog by playwright Christopher Demos-Brown.
SYNOPSIS: Based on the acclaimed Broadway play, the Netflix Television Event AMERICAN SON tells the story of Kendra Ellis-Connor (Emmy-nominee Kerry Washington), the mother of a missing teenage boy, as she struggles to put the pieces together in a South Florida police station. Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan and Eugene Lee also reprise their roles in the adaptation which presents four distinct viewpoints, while also navigating the unique dynamic of an interracial couple trying to raise a mixed-race son.
American Son hits Netflix on November 1st.
