Monday 4 February 2019

Film: 'Beautiful Boy'

This screen version of the father and son  memoirs of David and Nic Sheff, covering the son's fighting against his drug addiction, was hardly going to be a barrel of laughs. 'Bleakly heavy' would be a fair summary, so don't go if you're looking for a mood-lifter. 

It's more than competently done but my sole criticism of substance is the maddeningly constant flitting between present and past, and not just to where the 18 year-old son (Timothee Chalamet) is younger at just one stage, but to where he was five years old at one point and twelve at another - as well as several points where he had attained eighteen. We know that by this age he'd already started on drugs but was he as yet keeping it from his father?.....was he in a 'lucid' period?.......had he relapsed?...... I quickly became confused as to exactly where the 'present' was, having to keep looking for the amount of grey in his father's (Steve Carrell) beard to anchor me in the stage we were at - something which became increasingly tiresome. His father himself had been not unknown to drug-taking and had assumed that if his son was on anything it was 'only' marijuana. However, when it becomes clear that he's on crystal meths, the senior one, recognising the perils, cannot hold back and tries to persuade his son to get professional help. Hardly surprising that the younger one resists (predictably fiery and sweary exchanges between them) - and when he does agree he keeps absenting himself from the institutions into which he's been booked, going missing and leaving the father to try to find him time and time again.
The son here is the child of Sheff Senior's unsuccessful first marriage, and he's not slow in accusing his first wife of not taking a greater share in her son's upbringing. Meanwhile, he now has two further small children in his second marriage to watch over.  

It's more than a merely 'capable' film but it really is unremittingly on one grave note. It's significant that the longest musical item on the soundtrack is towards the end, a significant excerpt from Gorecki's Third Symphony - subtitled 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs'! 
Incidentally, when I first heard of this film I thought of the John Lennon song of identical title (written for his and Yoko Ono's only child together, Sean) - and the film does indeed acknowledge that source, one assumes it being the inspiration for the film's name. 

Belgian director Felix Van Groeningen elicits faultless performances from the entire cast, though I suppose that it was he more than anyone else who made the decision to have all this confusing flitting back and forth all the time which certainly wouldn't have been in the written memoirs. I'd have so much preferred a more straight-lined narrative continuum.

It's a bit of a surprise that neither of the two leading actors have been nominated for Oscars in this film, though Chalamet gets a BAFTA nod for 'Best Supporting Actor'. I thought Carrell was no less deserving, and with this role he confirms (again) that he is a serious dramatic actor of the first rank.

It's a story that doesn't lend itself to light-hearted moments and those you certainly do not get at all. Despite that the film's not over-burdensome. It's buoyed up by hope for the young Sheff's future which you know is not in vain because we're aware that he still survives...............6.5.

(IMDb...........7.3 / Rott. Toms...........6.5 )





11 comments:

  1. I went to see the film a few weeks ago, I had to re-read what I said about it to refresh my memory. I found it full of angst and very harrowing and I went not realising it was about a drug addict, from the trailer which I had seen several times, I thought he was to be rescued from a religious cult! Anyway, it was a tough film to see and drug addiction is a terrible thing and can tear families apart. It was done well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It does have a big emotional demand, Rachel, with no respite at all.
      I'd not realised that you'd already seen it, thinking it must have passed you by.
      Not a film I could put myself through a second time, though, so we're agreed on that one.

      Delete
    2. You need to read my posts everyday Ray; sometimes I write about a film I have seen in the middle of a post about something else and it is not clear from the post heading that a film is included! Yesterday I went to see a Lebanese film. But that one is in the heading.

      Delete
  2. Thanks. I don't think I'll bother. I need cheering up at the movies these days. The EU's constant grandma knows best so do what your told posturing is getting me down. At least we don't hear the phrase new world order any more so maybe that's a blessing. Sorry for going 'off piste' as Rachel calls it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It'll put you through the wringer all right, G.W., and it left me wondering if that had been a good enough reason to see it. (The answer - "Probably not").
      I also need my feelings to be buoyed up, but for reasons diametrically opposed to your own, but let's not go there - and this film doesn't do that at all.

      Delete
  3. In order to avoid confusion, I've lumped this film into a category that I call "The Three Bs:" 1) "Beautiful Boy" - Timothee Chalamet -addiction. 2) "Boy Erased" Lucas Hedges - gay conversion therapy 3) "Ben Is Back" - Lucas Hedges(again) - addiction.

    Found "Beautiful Boy" to be an emotional roller coaster. Excellent acting by Chalamet but there were some missteps in the film, especially the jumping back in forth in time as you pointed out. Fortunately, I
    saw this on one of the streaming services, so I was able to go back and forth. Was disappointed that there was no neat resolution. But this is real life portrayed and you just go on from there.

    Incidentally, I saw this back-to-back with "Boy Erased" and what a journey that was. Will look for your review on that one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'Boy Erased' gets its U.K. release this Friday, Paul, and is one I'm keen to see. No release date for 'Ben' here so maybe it won't get a theatrical release in these parts.
      Mu 'morning after' reflection on 'Beautiful Boy' is that it's a film I now want to forget, though seeing it has satisfied my curiosity. Now it's a case of 'Job done"'.

      Delete
  4. I loved this one, and didn't mind the time shifts because I was, no pun intended, hooked. Steve Carrell is amazing; I love to see a comic actor stretch and give us something else, and this was it.
    Timothee Chalamet really is a beautiful boy, but he played tortured and angry and hurt and bitter so very well.
    Now, I may have to check out Paul's "other" 2 B's.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was Carrell who was the stand-out for me here, Bob. I'm becoming an enormous admirer of his acting scope.
      Chalamet was indeed good but I got the feeling that he just did all that was required of him, excellent though it was.
      Not a film that's going to feature in my 'Best of' this year.

      Delete
  5. I haven't seen this one yet. But I did see 'Can you ever forgive me', which I really enjoyed. Melissa Mcarthy's best performance, and I don't think you can go wrong if you have Richard E Grant in a film. Are you likely to see it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've just come back 20 mins ago from seeing it, D. My next post.

      Delete