Beautiful Boy (2018)
Directed by Felix Van Groeningen
Written by Luke Davies, Felix Van Groeningen
Starring Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan
Release Date October 12th, 2018
Published October 9th, 2018
Beautiful Boy stars Steve Carell as David Sheff, a very successful freelance reporter living in California. When we meet David he appears to be at a desperate moment. He is interviewing a doctor, played by Timothy Hutton, about addiction. The doctor assumes this is for an article but David informs him that this research is personal. David’s son, Nic (Timothee Chalamet), is addicted to Meth and David has turned to the only thing he can imagine to make sense of things, in-depth research of the kind he’s done as a reporter.
Indeed, research is the one way in which David Sheff is able to deal with the futility of his son’s addiction. We watch as David takes this research to varying extremes from trying to talk with Nic, to interviewing a young addict over lunch, to interviewing the doctor. He even goes as far as trying methamphetamine himself to understand the appeal. He’s lucky that he didn’t begin his own addiction with that move.
These interactions are all kinds of interesting but as presented in Beautiful Boy the observations of David, the outcome of his research, have an obtuse quality. We get a vague insight into David, he lives for research, and that’s pretty much the one insight about the character that isn’t vague or assumed. He’s sensitive and he’s compassionate toward his son, he’s loving, but these are qualities we assume of a well to do parent and we wait for the story to tell us something different and it never does.
David is reminiscent of Donald Sutherland’s character from Ordinary People minus the straw man villain provided in that film by Mary Tyler Moore’s harridan mother-figure. Like Sutherland, Carell plays a saintly figure of suffering but without the Moore character to play off of, Carell doesn’t have many notes to play here. Carell is certainly not bad in this role which leaves me to wonder what anyone thought was particularly cinematic about what David goes through. What is David’s arc? Suffering some to not suffering as much?
Nic’s arc is to go from child to addict to recovery. That’s not a bad arc but it is off-screen a lot in favor of David’s less engaging lack of an arc. What are we to take away from Nic’s journey? What is special about what Nic went through? His family is wealthy, are we supposed to take away that addiction can happen to anyone regardless of privilege? The film doesn’t appear to have any insight or perspective, nothing really drives the narrative other than drugs are bad, don’t do drugs.
The main takeaway I had from the movie is that Timothee Chalamet is a very charismatic and intriguing actor who is underserved by a role that doesn’t have a strong narrative engine behind it. Everything is surface level in Beautiful Boy, starting with the beautiful sets and cinematography which are at odds with the agony of Nic’s addiction and the toll it is having on his family. I have joked in the past about characters in disease of the week dramas who have what I call ‘Pretty Cancer,’ that strange type of disease that allows you to remain movie star pretty despite being on deaths’ door.
Nic appears to have a case of ‘Pretty Addiction.’ Despite the years of meth abuse and living on the streets, the story appears to take place over 5 or 6 years or maybe a decade, now that I think about it, the movie is vague on this point. Regardless of however long Nic’s addiction has gone on, he remains a beautiful young man. Drugs don’t appear to take a toll on him aside from making him rather skinny but Chalamet even makes lanky look handsome.
There doesn’t appear to be a baseline reality to the story of Beautiful Boy despite the fact that it is based, loosely, on a true story. The film shies away from the uglier parts of Nic’s addiction. For instance, in his book, “Tweaked,” Nic is very open about his years of trading sexual favors with men for money to buy drugs. This doesn’t get mentioned once in the movie and Nic rarely looks worse for wear despite the drugs and what we can presume he did to get them.
Why did Nic get into drugs in the first place? The film has a scene of father and son sharing a joint and Nic opens up a little about how smoking weed makes life easier to deal with. What was wrong with his life? We don’t really know and perhaps we don’t need to. Kids try drugs all the time, some get a quick high and move on and some take on an addiction that can’t be explained. Brain chemistry makes some people more or less susceptible to drug addiction.
This is a very specific story about a specific kid who got into drugs, got addicted and stayed that way for a while. There is one thing that stands out that appears insightful and instructive. At one point, Nic talks about being ashamed of being on drugs and how drugs were the only way to stave off the shame. That’s a strong notion, a vivid insight into Nic’s mindset. Beautiful Boy could have used more thoughtful asides like that but the film is dramatically inert.
Beautiful Boy isn’t notably bad. Timothee Chalamet is incredibly talented and that talent shines through the moribund story being told here. Steve Carell, Maura Tierney and Amy Ryan are quite good at earning our sympathy but the story they are in lacks a narrative engine. The story unfolds in fits and starts that cause the film to drag and feel pointless even as it clearly has one point, drugs are bad, don’t use drugs.
I don’t want to completely warn you away from this movie as it is not terrible. Beautiful Boy just isn’t quite as good as it should be. The scenery is lovely but the story has no movement. Nic is moving toward not being an addict but the rest of the story sputters along hitting the same note, drugs are bad, don’t do drugs. This does not make for much compelling drama or insightful commentary.
See Beautiful Boy for the performance of Timothee Chalamet but keep your expectations for the movie low. This is not the Academy Award contender that some would like you to believe that it is. It’s a big budget Lifetime Movie of the week at best, with an Oscar-caliber performance from Chalamet that is undermined by the rest of the movie’s lack of ambition.
