The father from hell.
We follow a small family that consists of two children, their mother, and father. The parents are divorced, and the reason for that is that the father of the children is a bastard of a man who has repeatedly beaten his ex-wife. That’s what we are told. He still wants to have contact with his son because his daughter is almost 18 years old. So it’s her own choice if she wants to have contact with her horrible father from hell. And she wants nothing to do with him. The son is terrified of his father, and he’s written a letter to the judge who decides the case. But she doesn’t listen to him, and hell is not over for the small family who wants to live in peace.
Custody is a solid drama movie that has an intense nerve throughout the movie. You notice early on that there’s something wrong with the father of the young boy. You end up hating the whole court system when you see what the system can do to an innocent boy who has seen the evil with his own eyes and what his father is capable of. But the system that’s supposed to protect him fails. And that comes as no surprise, and you just wait for something bad to happen.
At first, you don’t know who you believe under the court hearing, which makes the journey more interesting. We see that the father is obsessed with his ex-wife and her new man. Doesn’t this sound familiar? So after about 45 minutes, we get the answer, and the answer didn’t surprise me at all.
The actors are amazing, especially the young boy. The actor who plays his father steals the show. He’s like a giant version of Kim Bodnia. He has such evil eyes, and it’s not so difficult to guess what will happen later in the movie if you watch closely what he has in his possession.
The only thing that I didn’t buy was the letter the boy had written to the judge and the lack of evidence against the father. It’s not that difficult to record a video or audio these days with smartphones. But the message that the movie tries to convey, comes through. That’s the important thing.
But you would think that a psychologist should have been involved in the case considering how much the young boy fears his father. And especially what he wrote in the letter to the judge. So I felt that the movie took some major freedoms, just so it could build up the tension when the father is allowed to spend some time with his son.