3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and graphic drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.26.18
This film is highlighted by quiet, extraordinarily powerful little moments.
Director Felix Van Groeningen often is wise enough to simply hold his camera on stars Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell, and they never disappoint. Chalamet, in particular, is a fascinating study, his character’s intelligent glow gradually dimming as this morose story proceeds.
 |
| Having already watched his son Nic (Timothée Chalamet, left) relapse repeatedly, despite numerous stints in detox and rehab, David Sheff (Steve Carell) wonders if things will be any different this time. |
Unfortunately, the film as a whole disappoints.
Stories that trace the downward spiral of drug addiction are of a type, and it’s hard to bring any freshness to a narrative with beats that are both inevitable and familiar: the initial descent and personality shift; the attempt at recovery and subsequent relapse; the attempt at recovery and subsequent relapse. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Van Groeningen and co-scripter Luke Davies deserve credit for trying to adjust the recipe, and it’s somewhat novel to view so much of this saga from the viewpoint of those who represent collateral damage: which is to say, the helpless family members. On the other hand, the constant flashbacks become irritating, even confusing. While it makes sense for David Sheff (Carell) to remember the cheerful, jovial kid his son Nic once was, at times it’s difficult to know whether a given scene — with Nicolas (Chalamet) as a young adult — is in the “present,” or the not-quite-present.
The story definitely gets additional dramatic heft from its real-world origins. Sheff is a widely celebrated journalist and author whose résumé includes work for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Fortune and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Van Groeningen and Davies’ script is adapted from Sheff’s best-selling 2008 memoir of the same title: a painfully raw account of dealing with Nic’s addiction to methamphetamine.
The script also draws from Nic’s version of events, in his book Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.
Difficult as it is, to watch this film at times, Van Groeningen and Davies chose not to include some of the books’ even bleaker events. Which probably is just as well.
Although Chalamet has the “showier” role, Carell’s David is the story’s focus. His is the more challenging acting job, since David most frequently reacts in response to Nic’s behavior. Carell’s face is a constant study in pain: haunted gaze and slumped posture, burdened by weary desperation. Rarely has the phrase “carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders” seemed more apt.
It’s natural to expect that if this saga includes a life-changing epiphany, it’ll belong to Nic; after all, the options are sharply etched. Either he kicks the habit, or he dies. But the crucial moment of dawning realization — a genuinely heartbreaking scene — actually belongs to David: when he finally, reluctantly, despondently realizes that he can’t fix this.
We’re reminded of the “three Cs” during an Al-Anon meeting that takes place toward the end of the film: You didn’t cause it; you can’t control it; you can’t cure it. Impossibly difficult to accept, for a parent accustomed to being a child’s full-time protector.
The bulk of the story takes place around the turn of the 21st century, with Nic 18 years old as we meet him: right at the point where he’s no longer able to control a drug dependency that he has concealed for six years. The Sheffs live in a gorgeous, partially secluded home in Marin County’s bayside town of Inverness. Nic is David’s son by his first wife, Vicki (Amy Ryan); she relinquished custody — when Nic was quite young — for reasons left unspecified.
David’s relationship with Vicki remains prickly. He married Karen (Maura Tierney) when Nic was an adolescent, and the now-blended family includes youngsters Jasper (Christian Convery) and Daisy (Oakley Bull). As the severity of Nic’s drug habit becomes increasingly obvious, the fabric of family togetherness begins to fray.
Not that we see much evidence of this, aside from David’s mounting frustration and helplessness. Tierney’s Karen is oddly subdued: silent to the point of seeming detached. Granted, Nic isn’t her son, but it becomes clear — via the frequent flashbacks — that she had a much stronger hand in raising him, than Vicki did.
Where, then, are the calm and/or agitated discussions between David and Karen? Where are the arguments that obviously must have erupted, as Karen begins to regard Nic as a potential threat to Jasper and Daisy? Tierney’s performance simply feels wrong: not her fault, because the script pays such scant attention to Karen.
She truly comes alive only once, when she pursues Nic in the aftermath of some deplorable behavior. We hope for some degree of confrontation, but — once again — Karen lets us down. It may have happened that way in real life, but dramatically, in a film, the moment reads false.
It feels like Van Groeningen and Davies focus on David and Nic, to the detriment of everybody else: not constantly true, but noticeably irritating.
That said, it’s hard to argue with the screen time given Chalamet, since he makes such excellent use of it. He’s as incandescent here as he was in last year’s Call Me By Your Name. We see the cunning evasiveness of the lie that’s about to emerge, when Nic is challenged about his drug use: a degree of feral craftiness that’s almost scary.
The most persuasive emotional “sell” is Nic’s tormented self-loathing: his bleak awareness that any desire to “get better” is doomed, because he lacks the strength to kick the monkey off his back. It’s tragic.
So are unexpected other moments, as when — late in the narrative — little Jasper, sensing his parents’ mood, calmly asks if Nic is on drugs again.
Kaitlyn Dever is memorable as Lauren, a former classmate who becomes Nic’s girlfriend and fellow addict in the third act. Watching the two of them shoot up in her apartment is horrifying, in great part because of the anticipatory eagerness that Dever displays; Lauren can’t wait for the needle to slide into her arm. Dever will be remembered as young Loretta McCready in TV’s Justified, and she’s made good on the promise shown even then.
Ryan works hard with a similarly underwritten role: She sketches Vicki well enough that her collapse into David’s arms, at a key moment, is both unexpected and quite touching. Andre Royo is excellent, in his brief role as Spencer, Nic’s AA sponsor.
Timothy Hutton pops up in a quick cameo, as a medical specialist who sympathetically — but bluntly — tells David about the harsh chemical realities of methamphetamine addiction. But Van Groeningen’s decision to open his film with a brief segment of that meeting — then bouncing back “one year earlier,” until we catch up to this conversation — is both baffling and pointless: a narrative device as clumsy as the frequent time shifts.
There is no dramatic score. The soundtrack is devoted exclusively to songs that were important to David and Nic, and mentioned in their books: stuff by Neil Young, Nirvana, Davis Bowie and alt groups such as Magwai, Pavlov’s Dog and Icelandic avant rockers Sigur Rós, along with (of course) John Lennon. His song “Beautiful Boy” gave David’s book — and this film — its title, and Van Groeningen’s well-placed use of it here is sublime.
In contrast, the use of some other songs is a bit too on the nose: needlessly hammering on-screen events (most particularly with the use of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, Op. 36: II. Lento e Largo – Tranquillissimo).
Ironically, for a film that feels measured during its 120 minutes, the story stops quite abruptly, at a rather jarring moment. The subsequent pre-credits text blocks, which cite the impact of deaths by drug overdose in the United States — and the need to halt this scourge — feel too much like a public service announcement.
(On the other hand, it’s hard to argue with the message. While leaving the advance screening early Monday afternoon, my fellow critics and I were confronted by a pan-handling woman in her 30s or 40s — hard to tell — who obviously was drunk or stoned. And was accompanied by a 6- or 7-year-old girl, who looked up at us dolefully.)
Although much of Beautiful Boy can be admired for its performances, I’m not sure the film adds anything meaningful to the debate. Nor is it entirely effective as cautionary melodrama.
Another case of the whole being oddly less than the sum of its parts.
No comments:
Post a Comment