 |
| photo courtesy of theguardian.com |
Timothée Chalamet and
Steve Carell star in Beautiful Boy, a
movie based on the memoirs of a father and his son. The movie follows the
relationship between the father, David, and the son, Nic, as Nic struggles to
cope with a meth addiction over the course of several years. Beautiful Boy is directed by Belgian
filmmaker Felix van Groeningen.
With Beautiful Boy, van Groeningen delivers
an intense, poignant portrait of addiction. Addiction narratives tend to follow
a fairly typical narrative—many of the same story beats predominate—and given
the patterns that drug addiction traces in real life, this makes sense. Beautiful Boy’s addiction narrative is no
exception, but its familiarity doesn’t negate the power of its performances or
its emotional impact.
 |
| photo courtesy of consequenceofsound.net |
It falls to Chalamet
and Carell to carry the movie, and both of them bring the appropriate gravitas
to their roles. Carell has already established himself as a serious dramatic
actor, of course, but here he’s outshined by Chalamet, who gives another
Oscar-contending performance. Roles like his can quickly devolve into
caricature; scenes that showcase dependency or depression can veer into
melodrama, and drug-addled highs are easy to overact. Chalamet avoids all of
these pitfalls, and as a result, his performance feels deeply emotional and is often
difficult to watch.
The story isn’t
perfectly told. Beautiful Boy risks
repetitiveness in places, and it also slightly loses focus as time goes on. The
movie has the most significant things to say about the central relationship—the
father and son dynamic—so it feels a bit less sure of itself when it ventures
further.
 |
| photo courtesy of imdb.com |
Even so, Beautiful Boy is worth watching if you
can stomach its heavy tone. Its depiction of addiction is cogent and precise,
thanks in large part to Chalamet. For most moviegoers, that clarity will
outweigh the movie’s emotionally demanding subject matter.
Beautiful Boy
is rated R.
TRAILER
Watch the trailer here.
 |
| photo courtesy of nerdist.com |
No comments:
Post a Comment