“Nobel Son”

Rated R for some violent gruesome images, language and sexuality.



Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman) is an egotistical, adulterous, arrogant, obnoxious and conceited college professor who has just learned that he has won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He is more than happy to gloat about it to any and all including his wife Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), a professor of forensic psychiatry, and his son (Bryan Greenberg), a PhD student in anthropology. Professor Michaelson treats his son with contempt and provides his son with a miserly allowance of $35 a week for food. However, Michaelson (senior) wants his son to go to Stockholm to witness his father’s “crowning” moment. On that score, he is generous; probably because the plane ticket is free.

The poor lovesick son, the night before the flight, drops by a bookstore for a poetry-reading event so he can moon over an “urban” artist self-named City Hall (Eliza Dushku). She is clearly the sexual aggressor and takes him to her apartment to dazzle him with her prowess. He is so smitten by her that he is late for the flight to Sweden the next morning. He would have made it, except when he arrives back to his house ostensibly to meet his parents (who have already left for the airport), he is kidnapped by a mysterious auto mechanic (Shawn Hartosy).

The horrid father is so self-absorbed and unfeeling that he assumes his son is faking the kidnapping and ignores the threats that his kidnapper will send the son’s thumb as proof of his abduction. When a severed thumb arrives by special delivery, the Nobel Laureate throws up in the King (of Sweden’s) courtesy limousine.

When mom and dad get back to the states, they are met by a detective friend of Dr. Sarah Michaelson (Bill Pullman). The police try to make sense of the kidnapping but everything about it is bizarre, including the use of a red Mini-Cooper in a mall. (Just a note of disclosure: I drive the exact same type of vehicle — down to the red body and black top, so I am somewhat obliged to like this film for this alone.)

I am hesitant to give too much away about this film, because the plot twists are very much part of the fun. There is a definitely sardonic and irreverent tone to Nobel Son, somewhat reminiscent of Raising Arizona. And I think Raising Arizona is one of the best films ever made in this genre. So, I have to end my description of the plot here and hope you will take my word that it is “sweet.”

The characters are deliciously amoral, appealing to our vindictive and violent base nature. The cast expertly shows the dark side of human nature.

Be assured that sex and violence are in the movie but the use of it is in keeping with the wicked but fun story. It is sort of an unexpurgated version of a fairy tale from the brother’s Grimm.

While watching Alan Rickman do his SOB thing, I am reminded of my favorite quote from Gore Vidal: “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” Nobody likes a bombastic popinjay and we all cheer when he or she goes down. It is a guilty pleasure. “Nobel Son” is a guilty pleasure. It also has Danny Devito playing an odd little man who ends in a manner that reminded me of a scene in another wonderful black comedy, “Charade.”

Nobel Son is an adult, intellectual, and satiric film that will probably not win any awards or bring in buckets of money at the box office. It is a quirky, funny, dark comedy that will be appreciated by far too few people. Try to be one of those few.

“Nobel Son” earns three and a half quirky bow ties out of five.