Any failure to expand into cinema's possibilities is overshadowed by the uniformly strong performances in a four-person cast led by an excellent Kerry Washington.

American Son never quite lapses into terrible, but as with a play that needs another week of out of town tryouts, it “never gets on its feet,” either.

The overly finished language and theatrical intensity levels that might be potently effective onstage lose any pretense of naturalism under the camera’s unblinking gaze.

At some point you’re tempted to stop following the narrative and start keeping score between husband and wife. It’s a good debate. It just isn’t much of a movie.

All these “what incredible irony!” moments are designed to…well, I’m not quite sure. The movie’s final line, an appropriation of the dying words of a black man killed by police, is an exploitative and cheap reversal that legitimately addresses precisely nothing.