Every Father's Son

YOU WILL BE MY SON (B-) - This French psychodrama comes off more as soap opera than compelling storytelling, with overly broad characters and over-acting.

Lorant Deutch is the mousy Martin, heir apparent to his father's esteemed winery, if only his dad, Paul (Niels Arestrup, "The Beat That My Heart Skipped") wasn't an unrelenting asshole intent on reducing the young man to a puddle of insecurity. Martin's beautiful wife, Alice (Anne Marivin), is seen as his only indicator of manhood; otherwise, he's belittled by his father as a childhood stutterer with academic but little practical experience or inclination in the field whose weaknesses are apparent because he's a jogger and he rents out a home from his father.

Martin's inheritance is threatened when the beloved longtime estate manager Francois (Patrick Chesnais, in the only authentic performance) is found to be dying of cancer and Francois' son, Phillipe (Nicolas Bridet), flies back to France from California, where he has been running the Coppola winery. Paul latches on to Phillipe and brings him in for the harvest while Francois convalesces from treatment. Meanwhile, Martin reels under his insufferable father's constant badgering, reduced to a bumbling (and once-again stammering) mess.

The film takes on hoary horror-film cliches that distract from the proceedings. Paul has a penchant for adding a few flakes of someone's ashes to each season's batch. And another character channels Lon Chaney Jr. as he seeks to lock another in the airless cask room.

You want to sink your teeth into this one, but the actors playing Paul and Martin are just a bit too cartoonish to believe. A clever ending can't rescue this pulp.

THE BUTLER (C+) - Forest Whitaker deserved better than this sweeping saga of an African-American butler who was a witness to power as a White House servant but who respectfully sat out the civil rights movement.

Lee Daniels ("The Paperboy"!) makes a crucial misstep in deciding to create a sweep of history in the clunky fashion of "Forrest Gump" or "Four Friends." Rather than provide weight to the proceedings, the gimmick becomes a ridiculous exercise in makeup tricks and a simpleton's lesson in U.S. history in the second half of the 20th century.

There's no doubt that Whitaker, as the classy Cecil Gaines, is still a powerful performer who can speak volumes with a look or a gesture. The final 20 minutes of this film can be profoundly moving. But the long strange trip, mostly through the 1960s and '70s, is a facile romp through a baby boomer's scrapbook of threadbare headlines.

The hook here is that Cecil (as we're reminded over and over) is an old-fashioned subservient minority while his son Louis (David Olelowo) asserts his rights as an activist breaking through barriers, popping up at every key event in the civil rights movement and eventually establishing a political career. Meantime, his father has the ear of presidents but stands mostly silent, remaining in his place.

The main fun here is the casting of the key historical figures. Robin Williams is Dwight Eisenhower (by way of Elmer Fudd); John Cusack (memorable as the serial killer in "The Paperboy") hams it up as Richard Nixon (as both veep and as president); and Jane Fonda is perfect as Nancy Reagan. In a major return to the big screen, Oprah Winfrey has a few effective moments as Cecil's alcoholic, long-suffering, cheating wife but mostly seems out of her league, a sassy refugee from "Mama's Family." Cuba Gooding Jr. makes the most of a supporting role as a fellow butler; his reaction to LBJ's insincere TV-friendly pronunciation of the word "negro" is priceless.

The entire structure of the movie is one big misstep. The fast-forward button is your best friend. And if you can handle the melodrama and a view of history suited for a fifth-grade textbook, Whitaker will somehow make you care deeply about one man's noble slog through life.