The Good Son (film) - Plot

Plot

In Arizona, 12-year-old Mark Evans (Elijah Wood) is taken to the hospital by his father Jack (David Morse) to visit his dying mother, Janice. Having been assigned for a business trip to Tokyo, Japan, Jack takes Mark to stay with his brother Wallace (Daniel Hugh Kelly) and sister-in-law Susan (Wendy Crewson) in Maine. Mark is re-introduced to his extended family, including his cousins Connie (Quinn Culkin) and Henry (Macaulay Culkin). Mark and Henry get along at first, and Henry seems to be nice and well-mannered. In discussing the death of Mark's mother and that of Henry's baby brother Richard, however, Henry expresses an abnormal fascination with death, making Mark uneasy.

Henry continues to display increasingly psychopathic behavior, which Mark is unable to tell Wallace and Susan, due to Henry's dark threats. Later, Henry implies that he will try to kill his sister. Terrified something will happen to Connie, Mark spends the night in her room. The next morning, Mark awakens to find Henry has taken Connie ice skating. At the pond, Henry purposely throws his sister in the thin ice. The ice collapses and Connie nearly drowns before she is rescued and taken to the hospital. Susan becomes skeptical of Henry when he visits Connie's room, planning to smother her, but Susan, sitting in the dark, interrupts him. Susan then finds a rubber duck in Henry's shed; it had once belonged to Richard and was with him in the bathtub the night he drowned, after which it went missing. When Susan confronts Henry, he coldly reminds her the toy had belonged to him before it had been Richard's and asks for it back. Susan refuses to give it back. Henry demands for it as he tries to get it from Susan. Susan becomes scared as she and Henry engage in a tug of war over it. Henry then violently takes it from Susan and runs out of the shed to the cemetery and throws it in the well indicating that Richard meant nothing to him.

Henry later implies to Mark that he will kill Susan, rather than let Mark continue to develop a relationship with her. Due to a misunderstanding that Mark was trying to kill Henry, Wallace locks Mark in the den. Henry asks a suspicious Susan to go for a walk with him, while Mark escapes the den and chases after them. Susan firmly asks if Henry killed his brother. Henry shrugs and says, "What if I did?" Horrified of what her son has become, Susan tells Henry that he needs help. He flees into the woods, and Susan chases him, afraid he will try to kill himself. She arrives at a cliff, which Henry shoves her off of. She holds on precariously, while Henry picks up a large rock he intends to throw down at her. Just then, Mark arrives and tackles his cousin, and they fight while Susan climbs back up. In the ensuing brawl, the boys roll off the cliff, and are caught by Susan. She arduously hangs onto both boys with one hand. Henry holds on with both his hands, but Mark's one-handed grip is slipping.

Wanting to save them both, and yet understanding she can save only one of them, Susan sees Henry icily calm again, confident that his mother will save her 'good' son. Though agonized by the decision, Susan now knows how far Henry is willing to go- if saved, he will likely kill his mother anyway, now that she knows the truth about him. She lets him go, choosing to save Mark, while a shocked Henry plummets to his death. She pulls Mark up, and they both look down to see Henry's dead body on the rocks below, which is washed away into the sea. Susan and Mark then share an emotional embrace.

When Mark returns to Arizona, he wonders if Susan would again make the same choice to save him instead of Henry, but knows it is something he'll never ask her.