The boy had reactive attachment disorder...
The beginning with the throwing stones part made me think he was psychopathic, but upon watching it, he seemed more sad and neglected, desperately seeking attachment and attention. The stone-throwing was the most "psychopathic" part and nobody was hurt... and children throwing stones is not really that exceptional. Kids can do a lot of stupid, even cruel, things without being psychopaths.
It is true that little psychopaths often wet the bed, but that is usually in connection with 2 other symptoms: fire-setting and cruelty to animals. The boy in this film is never shown as being cruel to animals or setting fires (at least, not that I saw, I did get distracted a few times).
He touches his teacher's breast... which was out of bounds and irritating, but again, not really that outrageous. I realize he is only supposed to be 8 or something, but still. The kids I knew growing up all did much worse than the kid in this movie, and none of them are psychopaths.
He seemed to want somebody to save him. The mother is distant from him and seems to regard him almost as a burden, in subtle ways. For instance, when he comes downstairs after having his nightmare and wetting his bed, she sends him back up, but doesn't go to him or hug him or attempt to comfort him. It is a cold interactiion, mechanical. Later she speaks to her husband about how having the boy almost "killed her" when the father tells his wife he wants to have another child, a little girl. The mother may have almost died during childbirth, or the "almost killed" part might have been a nod to postpartum depression, which is poorly understood now and virtually unknown 100 years ago.
When the boy tells his young teacher to go, that he wishes to study on his own, I almost felt like the boy saw his young mother in the woman and was trying to do what he felt was right. I get the sense the boy felt rejected, probably for a long time, and Ada symbolized to him (and to his mother) the young woman she once was. The mother questions Ada before she leaves about her desires to teach, and not have any children, and Ada seems to say the right things, making the mother think of her younger years and what might have been if she hadn't been married by her husband (who did not give up and is described in almost stalker-like terms). I got the sense that the cheque the mother handed Ada was for a considerable amount of money, almost a silent way of saying "whatever you do, keep teaching, don't get married and don't have kids." In all these subtle ways, the boy is being rejected.
The french maid Mona is like a warm maternal figure to the boy. When he doesn't eat, she brings him food, and when he refuses to eat his "gross food", she tosses it for him. She is warm, and hugs him, inquires about the scratches on his face and calls him pet names. I feel she is the closest thing the boy had to a real mother, even if she only worked for that particular family for 4 months. The boy freaks out when she is fired (for feeding him), and is enraged, but also, I think the last bit of his innocence has been taken... he has made a tentative bond to this older woman, and his birth mother, who is disinterested in him, shatters that bond.
There is also the issue of the long hair. Twice in the movie he is confused for a girl and this obviously upsets him and embarrasses him (to the point of vomiting) but he refuses to cut his hair. The father mentions later that he wishes to have another child, a little girl. Since the parents do not make the boy keep his hair long, and he doesn't like to be confused by a girl... what in the world would compel him to keep the long hair? I think on some level he senses that his parents- or at least his father- wish to "start over" with another child, a girl, and in a subtle, symbolic way he is trying to make himself more lovable by appearing more feminine... while at the same time, resenting the confusion.
So much of what humans do is symbolic and non-verbal. Babies are entirely non verbal, relying on eye contact, body language, smiling, etc... and one gets the sense the boy didn't get the love and attention he needed and has what amounts to reactive attachment disorder, but is not evil... only alone, lonely, disturbed and trying to make this early human connections and being thwarted. For instance, when he locks himself in his room for days and refuses to eat, the sense I got was that he wanted Ada to fight for him, prove to him that she loved and cared for him... instead of just leaving, He was doing things to provoke a reaction, a sense of caring (even if it came in the form of indignation or anger) but nobody seemed to go out of their way for him. They were angry he was "embarrassing" them, but not concerned with his internal world, or if he felt loved, or was happy... they were more concerned with what strangers thought than what their own child was living.
When the boy hurt the mother near the end of the movie, he was in a rage, and I don't suspect that was his intention. But it symbolized the final blow to their fragile bond, if indeed there was any bond at all. After that the boy seemed to be forgotten and didn't appear again... it was as if, without his mother, frail as their attachment was, he ceased to exist as an ego, as a character and the hate of that time period took up the remaining film time.
One trait of children with reactive attachment disorder is that on a fundamental level they do not trust adults and on a subconscious level feel that trusting or even obeying their parents can get them killed, because they do not truly believe the parents or other adults care for them or have their best interests at heart. Because of this, they go out of their way to control situations and dominate situations and conversations. In this way, the boy was picture-perfect RAD- for instance, showing how unnecessary Ada was by studying compulsively for 3 days to master his french, refusing to eat (showing the parents that he does not rely on them for sustenance) or, when forced to eat, refusing to eat. And the one person who nurtured him and seemed to think about what he was feeling and what was best for him (Mona) was dismissed without a second thought.
The part, then, when she says she will spend the rest of her life trying to destroy the woman's family makes sense, in a symbolic sense, as having this fragile, precious bond with another human being destroyed for the boy is a game-changer and takes him from disturbed, angry, neglected child desperately seeking attention and validation to budding psychopath no longer interested in human connections (as if the break with Mona wasn't enough of a crush, the scene where the father dislocates his arm is further symbolic proof of his disconnection from his family- his arm/hand is a symbol for how he interacts with and manipulates the world and his environment, and when he attempts to gain control, the father pulls the control away by literally dislocating the arm from its socket... )
Finally, there is the suggestion, probably missed by the majority of viewers, that the boy is the product of spousal rape. When the mother declines sex with the father, and then says the first pregnancy almost killed her, he responds with something like 'you're perfectly healthy" at which point the mother further tries to deflect his advances by saying "I'm bleeding" (menstruating) at which point Daddy Dearest says something along the lines of "I could make you, you know." This suggests that, to this man, forcing his wife to have sex (rape) is not outside the limits of his moral code and leads to a huge question mark about the boy's origins.
It is believed that a lot of bonding between mother and infant happens even before birth in ways that we don't even yet understand. If the boy was conceived in the violence of rape, it might also explain his desire to wear longish, girlish hair (to distance himself from the male brutality of his father), while at the same time being angry about being considered a girl.
There is a lot to explore in this movie. I really enjoyed it. A solid 7 out of 10 stars for me.
"We all go a little mad sometimes." - Norman Bates