Ben Is Back: He should have stayed away

Ben Is Back (2018) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for frequent profanity, dramatic intensity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

It’s a shame to see a fine performance wasted on poor material.

Julia Roberts acts up a storm in this well-intentioned melodrama, but writer/director Peter Hedges’ increasingly contrived script ultimately defeats her. 

Ben (Lucas Hedges, center) is protectively flanked by his mother (Julia Roberts) and
step-father (Courtney B. Vance), as they watch his younger half-siblings participate
in a church Christmas pageant.

Part of the problem is familiarity breeding contempt, and raising expectations. We’ve recently seen Beautiful Boy, which is a far superior study of a family attempting to endure — and surmount — the anxiety-laden complexities of dealing with a drug-addicted young adult son. That film felt authentic, its various crises proceeding logically, one to the next.

Hedges, in great contrast, lards his film — which takes place during a single 24-hour day — with an escalating series of revelations, challenges and predicaments that ultimately become ridiculous. The compressed time period doesn’t help, since it calls greater attention to the escalating absurdity.

The morning of Christmas Eve is bright and cheerful, until Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) surprises his family with a visit: unexpected — even potentially unwelcome — because the 19-year-old is supposed to be confined to a detox clinic. It’s okay, Ben smoothly insists; my progress has been excellent, so my sponsor approved this one-day visit, for Christmas.

His mother Holly (Roberts) is deeply conflicted, a duality that Roberts conveys superbly. Holly wants to believe him, but is doubtful; her daughter Ivy (Kathryn Newton), slightly younger than Ben, doesn’t trust him for a second. More to the point, Holly has built a new life, with a second marriage to Neal (Courtney B. Vance) that has produced their own two young children, Lacey (Mia Fowler) and Liam (Jakari Fraser). Their safety also warrants consideration.

(There’s no significant reference to Ben’s father, who plays no role here.)

Neal, patient and pragmatic, reminds his wife that they’ve been through this countless times before; rules have been established, which Holly agreed to. But it’s Christmas, and she desperately wants to share the holiday with her son. Ben, for his part, launches a charm offensive that quickly wins over his half-siblings.

But we viewers already know, emphatically, that Ben is lying. We watched him arrive at the house, while his mother and the other children were out shopping: witnessed his anger and impatience at not being able to get inside.

Given Holly’s wariness — and Neal’s calm, common-sense approach to the situation — one or both should make the obvious next move: Call the clinic, and check the veracity of Ben’s story. But neither of them does this, which is ludicrous. Right there, not even 15 minutes into the film, we lose faith in the script.

Even if Holly can’t bring herself to confirm what we know will be exposure of Ben’s lie, Neal absolutely would, in order to protect his own children. Heck, even Ivy is savvy enough, and determined enough, to make that phone call. But nobody does.

A compromise is reached, with Neal’s reluctant blessing: Ben can remain, and participate in the family’s various Christmas Eve activities — including Lacey and Liam’s roles in the local church Christmas pageant — if he allows his mother to remain at his side, monitoring his every move, every minute. Even during visits to the bathroom, and any other activity that might be personally embarrassing.

This actually is a reasonable premise on which to build what could have been an edgy,  nervous-making family drama: an increasingly tense, claustrophobic dynamic fueled by the uncertainty of Ben’s behavior. Canhe behave himself for 24 hours? Might he merely be waiting to retrieve some drugs he carefully concealed months — even years — ago? What’ll happen if he figures out a way to evade his mother’s hovering presence?

Unfortunately, Peter Hedges isn’t content with such an “ordinary” narrative. He introduces a crisis that precipitates behavior by Holly — and particularly Neal — that’s just plain stupid. There comes a point where Ben is faced with a choice so preposterously dire that we can’t help throwing up our arms in disgust.

Which is a shame, because the earlier, quieter moments between Holly and Ben crackle with the intimate intensity that should have been maintained through the entire film.

Roberts’ slow take is superb, when Holly initially is confronted with her son’s startling arrival: a frozen, deer-in-the-headlights display of superficial delight that can’t conceal fight-or-flight panic. (What’s he doing here?) The dread gradually drains away, replaced by cautious hope, as Ben soothingly insists that everything is all right; we see the shift in Roberts’ gaze, and as her posture relaxes slightly. It’s a masterpiece of subtly conveyed emotions.

The best sequence comes the first time Holly catches Ben in a lie, which leads to a confrontation in a cemetery (one of many scenes included in this film’s trailer, which reveals waytoo much). It’s a raw, painfully intimate, come-to-Jesus moment that both actors sell persuasively.

Lucas Hedges’ career-making role came with his Oscar-nominated supporting performance in 2016’s Manchester by the Sea, and he was an equally vibrant presence in last year’s Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. His work here is very carefully crafted. On the one hand, Ben frequently radiates a stealthy, feral malevolence that screams insincerity, and — let’s face it — he’s the one who constantly warns his mother (and everybody else) not to trust him, because of his history as a chronic liar.

And yet there are times — as when Ben breaks down in church, while watching the Christmas pageant — that his anguish and humiliation feel genuine. He knows that he’s bad news, and can be candid with that knowledge … but nonetheless finds it too easy to disappoint people.

Whether Ben deserves any actual sympathy, will depend on the individual viewer. But Hedges definitely does his best to make that decision difficult, by showing the many facets of Ben’s personality. (And it can’t hurt to have a father — Peter Hedges — who deliberately shapes a script, and character, to his son’s acting strengths.)

Vance elevates Neal to just this side of sainthood, which is a problem. As introduced, Neal simply wouldn’t remain as patient — and trusting — as this script insists. No matter how much dignity and calm practicality Vance manifests, he can’t make this man credible, particularly when we slide into the bonkers third act.

Newton fares better as Ivy, whose decisions and movements feel more organic and authentic. She’s a capable rising talent best known for TV work in shows such as Supernatural and Big Little Lies, and she deserves a shot at carrying a lead role.

Tech credits are solid, from Stuart Dryburgh’s often intimate cinematography — he and Peter Hedges don’t overdo the close-ups — to Ford Wheeler’s production design, which conveys the essential distinction between the wholesomeness of Holly and Neal’s home, and the squalor of later settings.

Alas — as I’ve noted far too often — even the best assembled talent can’t compensate for a deeply flawed script. Ben Is Back feels wrong far too often, all the way up to the particularly deplorable final scene.