The mystery isn’t who. But why.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Role: Ingrid
Director: Werner Herzog
Co-Stars: Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Grace Zabriskie, Brad Dourif, Michael Peña, Loretta Devine
Release Date: U.S., December 11 2009 (theatrical; limited)
MPAA Motion Picture Rating: R

• Overview
• Memorable Ingrid Quotations
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done Movie Trivia
• Critical Reception
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done Online

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My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done is loosely based on the mysterious true crime story of a young stage actor who, obsessed with a Greek tragedy he’s rehearsing, slays his own mother with a sword. Michael Shannon appears as Brad MCullum, a man terribly at odds with the world around him. His story emerges in a series of flashbacks that take us on a journey that includes the Peruvian wilds, an ostrich farm, a Mexican border town and a quiet San Diego neighborhood where the drama unfolds.

Chloë Sevigny portrays Ingrid, Brad’s girlfriend and one of his few remaining connections to the “normal” world. When Brad locks himself in his apartment with a shotgun and hostages, a devastated Ingrid provides the police with his backstory in the hopes that it will help the police get both him and the hostages out safely.

Quotations coming soon/not available.

• The film is loosely based on the true story of Mark Yavorsky, a San Diego man inspired by Aeschylus’s Oresteia to stab and kill his mother with an antique saber on June 10, 1979. Yavorsky was at the time a graduate student at UCSD who had recently been cast in the lead role of a production of The Eumenides. Yavorsky was tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity, and spent many years at Patton State Hospital before his release. Director Herzog met once with Yavorsky prior to filming, but the film does not follow his story very closely and Herzog himself has stated that “about 70 percent of the script is false… loosely made up.”

• Chloë Sevigny and Grace Zabriskie also appear together on HBO’s Big Love.

• According to an interview with Chloë in the August/September 2009 issue of Tokion, Chloë was initially a little apprehensive working with director Herzog, with whom she had previously had a less than pleasant working relationship on Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), in which Herzog and Chloë play father and daughter respectively. “But we spoke on the phone before, and he seemed very kind and enthusiastic about me being in the project. I showed up and he was very gentle, and it was completely the opposite of the experience on Julien Donkey-Boy.”

• Although the film was often advertised as a Werner Herzog-David Lynch collaboration, Lynch was in fact only an executive producer and did not actively participate in the making of the film. According to Chloë, he was never seen on set (Tokion, 2009).

• In addition to locations in Los Angeles and San Diego, California, scenes in My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done were shot in Peru, Mexico and China. The main location for the shoot was a real home in Point Loma, San Diego, near Yavorsky’s home. According to director Herzog, however, the close proximity to Yavorsky’s home was a financial decision only and a coincidence. Herzog had also originally set the rafting trip scene at the Braldu River in the western Himalayas, where the “real life Brad” Mark Yavorsky had had his life-changing experience, but for safety reasons did not wish to film in Northern Pakistan.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done first premiered to mediocre reviews at the Venice Film Festival in September 2009, before receiving a limited theatrical release in New York City. Since its debut, the film has toured a lot of international film festivals, but has been largely ignored by the critics. In any case, reviews on the film have been mixed, the film’s mysticism having been the greatest source of debate among moviegoers and movie critics alike. Michael Shannon, however, has received nigh unanimous praise for his portrayal of Brad McCullum.

• Rating > Internet Movie Database: 6.4/10 (2,100 user votes counted)
• Rating > MetaCritic: No rating (professional)
• Rating > Rotten Tomatoes: 51% positive reviews, “Rotten” (professional)

Extracts from professional reviews:

“The result is a film that gets increasingly under our skin as it goes along, tying up loose ends along the way while leaving other things maddeningly out of reach. This offbeat storytelling may infuriate moviegoers who like tidy plotting, but for fans of bold filmmaking that challenges our perceptions of real events, this is simply stunning. The flashbacks alone are worth the price of admission, from the fateful river trip in Peru to flaring tensions in the theatre group to, most outrageously (and most Lynchian), the bizarre relationship between Brad and his mum. [...] Along the way, Herzog offers some potent commentary about fanaticism, and he sparks his cast to truly remarkable performances, including a series of eerily frozen tableaux. Shannon is especially good as the unhinged young man whose world seems to spiral into a sort of Inca tragedy, with Zabriskie stealing her scenes by simply deploying those magnificent eyes. This isn’t a whodunit, and it doesn’t really explain why either, but as an exploration of one man’s increasingly erratic behaviour, it’s pure magic.”
- Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

“Lynch and Herzog also share a deadpan sense of humor, so it makes sense that My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done — directed by Herzog and “presented by” Lynch as executive producer — is a giddy hybrid of their creative sensibilities. It’s also a mostly incoherent mess, but that doesn’t stop it from being an amusing curio like Herzog’s previous feature, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. [...] Michael Shannon (most recently seen in The Runaways) is intensely charismatic and strangely off-kilter, fully committed to his role as Brad, a San Diego grad student who ignites a residential-hostage crisis (based on the 1979 matricide case of Mark Yavorsky) after killing his needy, controlling mother (Grace Zabriskie) with a saber. [...] Along the way, Herzog occasionally freezes his actors in tableau poses that fail to deliver any discernible significance. Herzog’s intentions remain frustratingly vague, and while the presence of Herzog favorite Brad Dourif (as Brad’s ostrich-farmer uncle) adds another touch of sun-baked eccentricity, it’s not enough to prevent this from being one of Herzog’s quirky misfires.”
- Jeff Shannon, The Seattle Times

“Michael Shannon’s performance as Brad is a godsend, the best film performance that this great, under-used character actor has ever given us; it is carefully, weirdly attuned to the physical space and other characters around him, so that he always seems the most organic part of any scene and at the same time completely alien in every context. Nicolas Cage’s performance as the crazy cop in The Bad Lieutenant was showier and perhaps more dangerous, but Shannon is infinitely more discomfiting and upsetting; since the best way to compare the two films is to call My Son, My Son more discomfiting and upsetting, this distinction between the actors seems just. [...] My Son, My Son is still a movie that nobody else could have made, and nobody else would have wanted to make. Which may or may not be a good thing; but the film unquestionably has the merit of being wildly unconventional, and even the viewer who is wildly turned-off by the film can’t argue in faith that it’s dull. Which maybe was the point all along. Anyway, I liked the hell out of it.”
- Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstacy

Personal Thoughts

Sandra: Even though many critics panned this movie, having seen it a couple of times now I have rather grown to love it. That isn’t to say I fully understand it — I don’t — but then it also doesn’t feel like a movie meant to be dissected and fully understood. More than anything, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a fascinating journey into one man’s psyche, a study of his descent into what appears to be a kind of madness, and Michael Shannon delivers an absolutely unparalleled performance channeling Brad’s dark thoughts. And maybe it was just me, but I for one found myself smiling more than once at what I perceived as writer-director Herzog’s morbid sense of humor. Slow-paced and borderline melodramatic, it’s not a movie for everyone, but it definitely hit home with me.

Chloë Sevigny’s portrayal of Ingrid also marks one my favorite Chloë performances. Although this is definitely Michael Shannon’s film, Chloë plays well off Brad’s growing madness and provides a welcome balance in the film between the normal and the absurd. I thought the character was a great fit for Chloë and, paired with e.g. her recent work as the much “flashier” Nicki on Big Love, showcases just how versatile she can be.

Below are some My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done-related links that may be of interest to you.

• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done official site
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done TFL-approved fanlisting
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done TFL-approved Ingrid character fanlisting
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done on IMDb.com
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done on RottenTomatoes.com
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done on Wikipedia.org

• Werner Herzog on IMDb.com
• Werner Herzog on Wikipedia.org

• Udo Kier on UdoKier.de