While certainly a good movie, I was a bit disappointed in Beautiful Boy, from director Felix Van Groeningen, who co-wrote the script with Luke Davies, and which serves as a dual-adaptation of two memoirs, written by the father and son portrayed by Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet, who both delivered strong performances.
The film centers on a traditional father-son dynamic, with Chalamet’s character, an over-achiever in high school, developing a serious hunger for all-things-illicit, with his demand for drugs and alcohol quickly spiraling out of control.
Carell plays his perplexed father, a man who clearly loves his son but simply cannot understand why he’d poison himself so often. The film bounces back in forth in time, showing key moments from the lives of both people, with Amy Ryan and Maura Tierney offering solid support as Carell’s first and second wives, respectively.
The film is well-cast, well-produced, and well-intentioned, but something was missing here to really make the film pop.
I had high expectations for Beautiful Boy and while accomplished in many respects, it needed to hit harder, go deeper with its themes, and it was tough to muster serious sympathy for a character who makes the decision to repeatedly abuse crystal meth and act like a prick to all those around him.
The emotional trajectory of the film is very flat-lined, and while a nice idea in theory, the lack of “big scenes” afforded to the actors keeps everyone a bit subdued when all-out passion was required. I’m also not sure the slick-n-pretty shooting and editing style was the right aesthetic fit for this otherwise downbeat story, with an eclectic but intrusive musical score/soundtrack always blaring in the distance.
Review by Nick Clement
Summary
I was left at a remove while watching Beautiful Boy, and that’s a bummer, because this is a story that I expected to pull me in as a viewer, especially now that I’m a father of a son, and I can think of few other things in life as harrowing as watching your child succumb to drug addiction.
