Directed by: Felix van Groeningen
Starring: Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan, Timothy Hutton, Kaitlyn Dever
As a father who lost his son to addiction three years ago this month, I went into Beautiful Boy expecting to cry, and frankly I was disappointed that I didn't. Beautiful Boy is a story of a father anguished by his son's addition to crystal meth (and soon heroin), and many of the same situations and emotions I went through are shown on screen, but Beautiful Boy frustratingly holds back. It doesn't wander out to the edge of the emotional cliff, and that makes all the difference between a solid effort and a powerhouse which blows you away.
Based on true events, Beautiful Boy tells the story of David Scheff (Carell), a freelance writer whose late-teen son Nic is deep into drug addiction as the movie begins. He started with weed, and soon progressed into pills, alcohol, meth, and then heroin at a frightening pace. He forsakes college for the drug life and soon we see a life wasted before his father's very eyes. David is divorced from Nic's mother, but is remarried to the nearly saintly Karen (Tierney) with whom he has two younger children. One of the noticeable gaffes of Beautiful Boy is its lack of utilization of the mother figures in Nic's life. Karen barely has any scenes in which she speaks more than one sentence at a time, and her job is mainly to hug Nic when she sees him and scowl as Nic robs her house and makes her husband's life hell. Nic's biological mother (Ryan) lives in Los Angeles, and we see her all too briefly. This is a movie about David and Nic. Period. The other people exist on the periphery and rarely have a chance to intervene or make their mark on the movie.
Beautiful Boy is told in a non-linear chronological style, which at times is quite involving. We see David sitting a coffee shop table awaiting his son and he thinks back to sitting at that same table years ago with the loving, wide-eyed Nic who existed before addiction grabbed a hold of him. I have had the same flashbacks, as most parents of addicts have, and David wonders how the same lovely child has grown up into the shell of a person he sees now. Carell, who has impressed in previous dramatic roles like Foxcatcher, is equally adept here in making David someone we can identify with and feel sorry for. Although frankly, the scene in which David buys drugs himself and snorts them doesn't go anywhere. Why does he do this? To understand what his son is going through or to see what the big deal was? He wanted to be the best dad to Nic, and found to his disappointment that it wasn't enough to stop him from using. Because, unfortunately, no amount of love, sanity, or reason can compel an addict to free himself from drugs. It is something he or she must do on their own. When we hear Nic say, "this is it, I'm done with drugs," he means it at the time. But, then the yen for the drug comes calling and all bets are off. David's heartbreak occurs because he thinks Nic will follow through this time, and when Nic uses again, everything goes back to square one.
Timothee Chalamet is being touted for an Oscar nomination for his work, but his character only has so high of an emotional arc it can reach. He is either high or killing time until he gets high again. He is a vessel for drug abuse; a zombie-like presence. The performance is technically proficient, but doesn't allow us to see inside. Nothing about Beautiful Boy would suggest Oscar-worthiness. We have seen better, more resonating depictions of addiction on screen before. Some of the more powerful and harrowing were 1987's Less Than Zero, 1986's Sid and Nancy, and even the more recent A Star Is Born. Beautiful Boy seems to know the words without knowing the music. And speaking of music, due to the movie being titled Beautiful Boy, I was not surprised when John Lennon's song was shoehorned into the proceedings. It all adds up to a near-miss which has the potential to tell a powerful story and doesn't have the courage to take us on a guided tour of hell.
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