"Relapse is a part of recovery."
Throughout Felix van Groeningen's wrenching addiction drama Beautiful Boy, caring father David Sheff (Steve Carell) is told over and over and over again that his beleaguered son (Timothée Chalamet) will experience a number of relapses before he can overcome this paralyzing affliction. Nic Sheff temporarily beats his meth addiction, only for it to swing back around and eat at his mind once more, repeating a cycle that seems destined to end in his death. In fact, the idea that addiction rarely exists on a straight path becomes the core ethos of the film, which chronicles Nic's endless series of ups and downs in a remarkably frank fashion. The process of recovery does not fit nicely into the cookie-cutter box of the Oscar drama, and van Groeningen wisely avoids shaping the story to craft a smoother, more straight-forward path.
Nic goes to rehab. He gets better. He goes to college and meets a girl. Then something happens and he's suddenly injecting heroin in his dorm room. The cycle restarts.
David and Karen (Maura Tierney) get Nic more professional help. He's on a good path and works hard to stay clean. But in an instant, his addiction rears its ugly head again. Back to ground zero. And it repeats again and again until Nic can finally cure himself of this disease.
With this in mind, calling Beautiful Boy repetitive without acknowledging this purposeful structural choice feels futile, a willful omission of what I believe to be the film's core aim. Addiction is repetitive; these relapses are a part of the recovery process. At the same time, the struggles that come with such a brutally tedious framework cannot be ignored- the film's lofty and genuine goals are not enough to justify such a dramatically inert method. It can only lead one to believe that maybe this is precisely why the story of addiction is so difficult to represent on-screen. Watching the same cycle play out numerous times may be accurate, but it results in a two hour long film that feels more like four hours in practice.
Of course, this is not the only problem in play here. The film has been widely touted for its performances, especially from Call Me By Your Name breakout Chalamet, who has since become a front-runner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. After seeing his performance, it's hard to tell if the awards push is coming from a real appreciation of his work here or a sense that his recent loss to Gary Oldman was so egregious that he simply must be awarded as soon as possible. Just like Elio Perlman, Chalamet's Nic Sheff has a pseudo-intellectual vibe to him, only he's appreciating F. Scott Fitzgerald instead of Bach. With his rapid oscillations from vulnerable to likable to infuriated, it's hard not to feel a level of sympathy for Nic and his journey.
But the film keeps us at arm's length from Nic, which, by default, means that Chalamet himself feels slightly distant. Some were confused when the actor moved to the supporting race, but this is certainly not his story. That honor belongs to Carell's David, who drives the story as he searches for a way to save Nic from the clutches of addiction. Though many have already made fun of Carell's borderline comedic screaming fits, he really does have the whole gentle suburban dad vibe down pat. The film's soulfulness rests with his seemingly boundless affection for Nic, and it's enough to sustain the story for a while.
Then David drops out of the picture. Well, he doesn't exit the film entirely, but he eventually struggles to find anything that could possibly be of use. Once the dutiful emotional bedrock of the story, Carell slowly fades into the background as his son's condition worsens. From here, one would automatically assume that the latter half of the film will shift its lens to the horrifying effects of addiction on Nic himself. Yet at this point in the story, Chalamet's long-suffering protagonist is too far gone to have any defining characteristics. His humanity has eroded, to the extent that he's driven solely by his addiction.
We're left with a character study where the characters are pretty thin, serving more as a cautionary tale of a greater cultural struggle against addiction than a personal memoir writ large. The film brings up a few interesting strands, such as David's own youthful experimentation with drugs, only for them to get lost in the shuffle. David and Nic even share a joint in one crucial scene, but Luke Davies and van Groeningen's screenplay stops short of suggesting that this father figure enabled this addiction. Speaking of the script, it's clearly the film's biggest shortcoming; especially in the early moments, the dialogue always lands with a thud or a cringe.
Van Groeningen himself is a strong, clear-eyed filmmaker, often wisely juxtaposing the grisly journey of meth and heroin use with the story's plethora of sunny, picturesque locales. Shot by cinematographer Ruben Impens, Beautiful Boy has an earthy, low-key vibe, which is frequently interrupted by moments of stomach-churning inevitability. Van Groeningen aims for a visceral effect, and he succeeds. I covered my eyes in pain, partially from the disturbing sight of Nic's wound-filled arm, but mostly because of how these relapses seem so unavoidable.
It's a shame that Beautiful Boy is so fractured and scattered, unable to ever maintain any consistent source of momentum or emotion. Yes, fidelity to the reality of addiction is an important and valuable tool, but the story is jumpy to the extent that its impact is diluted with each repetition. And after a while, the film just feels interminable.
THE FINAL GRADE: C+ (5.6/10)
Images courtesy of Amazon Studios
Poster: Amazon/IMDb
Throughout Felix van Groeningen's wrenching addiction drama Beautiful Boy, caring father David Sheff (Steve Carell) is told over and over and over again that his beleaguered son (Timothée Chalamet) will experience a number of relapses before he can overcome this paralyzing affliction. Nic Sheff temporarily beats his meth addiction, only for it to swing back around and eat at his mind once more, repeating a cycle that seems destined to end in his death. In fact, the idea that addiction rarely exists on a straight path becomes the core ethos of the film, which chronicles Nic's endless series of ups and downs in a remarkably frank fashion. The process of recovery does not fit nicely into the cookie-cutter box of the Oscar drama, and van Groeningen wisely avoids shaping the story to craft a smoother, more straight-forward path.
Nic goes to rehab. He gets better. He goes to college and meets a girl. Then something happens and he's suddenly injecting heroin in his dorm room. The cycle restarts.
David and Karen (Maura Tierney) get Nic more professional help. He's on a good path and works hard to stay clean. But in an instant, his addiction rears its ugly head again. Back to ground zero. And it repeats again and again until Nic can finally cure himself of this disease.
With this in mind, calling Beautiful Boy repetitive without acknowledging this purposeful structural choice feels futile, a willful omission of what I believe to be the film's core aim. Addiction is repetitive; these relapses are a part of the recovery process. At the same time, the struggles that come with such a brutally tedious framework cannot be ignored- the film's lofty and genuine goals are not enough to justify such a dramatically inert method. It can only lead one to believe that maybe this is precisely why the story of addiction is so difficult to represent on-screen. Watching the same cycle play out numerous times may be accurate, but it results in a two hour long film that feels more like four hours in practice.
Of course, this is not the only problem in play here. The film has been widely touted for its performances, especially from Call Me By Your Name breakout Chalamet, who has since become a front-runner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. After seeing his performance, it's hard to tell if the awards push is coming from a real appreciation of his work here or a sense that his recent loss to Gary Oldman was so egregious that he simply must be awarded as soon as possible. Just like Elio Perlman, Chalamet's Nic Sheff has a pseudo-intellectual vibe to him, only he's appreciating F. Scott Fitzgerald instead of Bach. With his rapid oscillations from vulnerable to likable to infuriated, it's hard not to feel a level of sympathy for Nic and his journey.
But the film keeps us at arm's length from Nic, which, by default, means that Chalamet himself feels slightly distant. Some were confused when the actor moved to the supporting race, but this is certainly not his story. That honor belongs to Carell's David, who drives the story as he searches for a way to save Nic from the clutches of addiction. Though many have already made fun of Carell's borderline comedic screaming fits, he really does have the whole gentle suburban dad vibe down pat. The film's soulfulness rests with his seemingly boundless affection for Nic, and it's enough to sustain the story for a while.
Then David drops out of the picture. Well, he doesn't exit the film entirely, but he eventually struggles to find anything that could possibly be of use. Once the dutiful emotional bedrock of the story, Carell slowly fades into the background as his son's condition worsens. From here, one would automatically assume that the latter half of the film will shift its lens to the horrifying effects of addiction on Nic himself. Yet at this point in the story, Chalamet's long-suffering protagonist is too far gone to have any defining characteristics. His humanity has eroded, to the extent that he's driven solely by his addiction.
We're left with a character study where the characters are pretty thin, serving more as a cautionary tale of a greater cultural struggle against addiction than a personal memoir writ large. The film brings up a few interesting strands, such as David's own youthful experimentation with drugs, only for them to get lost in the shuffle. David and Nic even share a joint in one crucial scene, but Luke Davies and van Groeningen's screenplay stops short of suggesting that this father figure enabled this addiction. Speaking of the script, it's clearly the film's biggest shortcoming; especially in the early moments, the dialogue always lands with a thud or a cringe.
Van Groeningen himself is a strong, clear-eyed filmmaker, often wisely juxtaposing the grisly journey of meth and heroin use with the story's plethora of sunny, picturesque locales. Shot by cinematographer Ruben Impens, Beautiful Boy has an earthy, low-key vibe, which is frequently interrupted by moments of stomach-churning inevitability. Van Groeningen aims for a visceral effect, and he succeeds. I covered my eyes in pain, partially from the disturbing sight of Nic's wound-filled arm, but mostly because of how these relapses seem so unavoidable.
It's a shame that Beautiful Boy is so fractured and scattered, unable to ever maintain any consistent source of momentum or emotion. Yes, fidelity to the reality of addiction is an important and valuable tool, but the story is jumpy to the extent that its impact is diluted with each repetition. And after a while, the film just feels interminable.
THE FINAL GRADE: C+ (5.6/10)
Images courtesy of Amazon Studios
Poster: Amazon/IMDb
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