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For the children of immigrants, a parent’s sacrifice can feel like an unrepayable debt. Making its world premiere at TIFF, Ian Bawa’s Strong Son understands the complicated mix of love, guilt, and responsibility that comes with trying. At its centre is a son struggling with his mental health while taking on the care of his charming, stubborn father. Bawa keeps the plot deliberately sparse, focusing on the specific tension that emerges when parents and children love each other, but don’t speak the same emotional language.
In the film’s most quietly devastating moment, Harvinder “Harvey” Singh (Mandeep Sodhi) breaks down crying, only for his father (Amrit Parbhakar) to turn up the television and tell him he’s “acting like his mom.” It’s a painfully familiar exchange for anyone who has tried to tell a parent they’re struggling, only to hear how much harder their parent had it.
Bawa reinforces that isolation by leaving supporting characters blurred or off-screen, visually trapping Harvey within his declining mental health. It makes the film’s relatively tidy resolution feel almost too easy after spending so much time establishing how difficult these emotional knots are to untangle. Still, Bawa’s keen eye for this quiet struggle shows a compassion for both the thankless realities of filial duty and the burden of self-care. Strong Son is a portrait of generational grief that’s worth checking out.
