[usr 4.5]
Based on the best-selling pair of memoirs from father and son David and Nic Sheff, Beautiful Boy chronicles the heartbreaking and inspiring experience of survival, relapse, and recovery in a family coping with addiction over many years.
If you love intense dramas that are raw and honest, concerning heavy topics like drug addiction or family crisis, you’re going to love this film. It definitely gave me the emotional essence of “The Basketball Diaries” or “Requiem for a Dream,” which I loved. This is the English language debut of Felix Van Groeningen, a Belgium director known for his foreign films surrounding intense subject matter such as drug use, illness, and life struggles.
“Beautiful Boy” is based on a memoir written by David Sheff, a father who recounts his pain and struggle coping with his son’s drug addiction to crystal meth. Nic Sheff (Timothée Chalamet), a somewhat introverted kid, gradually falls into drug use and becomes heavily addicted to crystal meth. His father David (Steve Carell) tries to help him but learns over time, that he is the one person that can not.
There isn’t one defining moment in the film that reveals why Nic turns to drug use. Like many other young adults, he seems to begin experimenting with marijuana and graduates to other substances including crystal meth. By the time his father David finds out, Nic is already displaying typical habits of an addict; withdrawal, lying, and stealing.
There is a pivotal scene where it is revealed that Nic has a serious problem. Nic is back at home and his little brother Jasper (Christian Convery), is fighting his sister Daisy (Oakley Bull) intensely over his $8 that went missing. When David confronts Nic he denies it and goes frantic over the accusation and leaves home. At that point, we know Nic stole it and is spiraling downwards. When David does speak to Nic about his drug use, Nic is open but can’t express specifically what about his life makes him want to hurt himself in this way, he just says he needs to take the edge off.
Throughout the film, we see flashbacks to Nic’s childhood. This is very helpful in putting the pieces together. We learn that his parents divorced when he was very young and his mom Vicki (Amy Ryan) left the family and is a career woman living her best life in New York. Meanwhile, David has remarried a woman named Karen (Maura Tierney) and has two more children with her. He tries to balance, giving Nic the attention he still needs while being present for his wife and younger kids. The most heartbreaking scene was the overdose. Nic goes on a drug binge after being clean for some time and the doctor says he was shocked Nic had survived because of the number of drugs in his system.
What I love about this film is that the energy stays consistent throughout. There is a dreary tone in the nature scenery, the color of their clothes, even their speaking voices. There isn’t a moment where you get lost or wonder who the characters are or what their relationship is to each other. The cast was amazing together and cohesive. There was an actual sense of family dynamic and caring for each other. When there was a powerful scene, we the audience felt and believed it. There was hardly a dry eye in the theater.
I love the rawness of the movie. It does not glamorize drug use or shun addiction, instead, it shows you heartache, loneliness, hopelessness, and desperation. It also treats this dependency like any other illness where there is constant progress and relapse.
The only thing I couldn’t get past was the WHY factor. Nic does not come from poverty, a drug stricken environment, he did not grow up around parents who did drugs in front of him. He was loved, given everything and still made a conscious choice to turn to drugs, even though I understand that drug addiction does not discriminate. Anyone can become addicted no matter their age, race, social or economic background, I still felt slighted, upset, disturbed amongst other things. I felt a bit of anger watching the parents shell out thousands of dollars for beautiful rehabilitation treatments centers most people can’t afford to send their loved ones that are addicts. I wanted to feel sorry for Nic but I couldn’t somehow. But I did feel, I felt everything I possibly could from beginning to end of this movie. I guess this is why this is such a great film. It will definitely make you FEEL!
Now playing in select theaters
