Beautiful Boy (2018) -

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There’s a lot to unpack with this movie, with a lot of things that went well, but also some things that were mildly disappointing. Let’s make this very clear, however: I really enjoyed this movie, and both Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet do a fantastic job in their roles.

his story follows the young adulthood of a boy named Nic who has become addicted to drugs and alcohol and wrestles with the process of rehabilitation encouraged by his father, David. Simultaneously David struggles with the obvious questions that come along with finding out his son has developed a substance abuse problem. As Nic grows older, David is left helpless, realizing that the only person who can get Nic to stop is himself. The plot is based on a true story, and it does a relatively strong job of capturing the experiences that not only addicts, but also family members go through during the process.

That being said, I felt an overwhelming sense of insecurity and misdirection in the development of the film. Throughout the first hour, we primarily follow David and see his newfound knowledge of his son’s substance abuse problems start to consume his life both mentally and emotionally. There is no backstory to Nic’s problems, and we are only given a vague glance of how it truly affects him in his day to day life. A tone is set quite loud and clear that this is a movie about David, not Nic.

Then, in what is all but a subtle shift, the focus is turned toward Nic. Shots of him actively buying and using become commonplace, and David swiftly becomes an afterthought. In a way, some will likely view this as poetic and intentional, metaphorically representing the change in Nic’s mentality and primary focus from his family and relationships to his short term dopamine rushes. Unfortunately, under the assumption that it was intentional, this effect was lost on me almost entirely. Instead it created a disconnect between myself as the viewer and what I had begun to understand about David. Perhaps the intention was to use David’s perspective as an entryway into the primary problem the movie focuses on, but through spending over half the movie developing the story through the lens of David, his sudden absence in the second half seems odd and quickly raises eyebrows.

My final complaint is regarding the lack of creativity when it comes to encapsulating the euphoria caused by the drugs. Don’t get me wrong, Chalamet does a fabulous job of playing someone who has developed a drug addiction, but I would be lying if I said that the moments where we see him using aren’t disappointingly bland. I’m obviously not asking for some cheesy effects like the hallucinations in Fight or Flight, but even just something as simple as utilizing a Hitchcock Zoom or something to break up the monotony and represent those moments in a distinct light from the rest of the movie would have done wonders.

I honestly think with a different cast that this movie would have flopped. I don’t say that with the intent to discredit what the movie does as a whole, but more so to emphasize what a great job Chalamet and Carell do. Yes, it’s well written for the most part, and the story is beautifully tragic in the best ways, but there are simply too many problems that are just a bit too big for me to ignore.

Regardless of all the problems I’ve complained about, I did enjoy my time watching this from a subjective perspective. Substance abuse is no joke, and it’s an issue close to my family, so this movie definitely hit a soft spot for me. It can be nice to have movies like these where its job isn’t to necessarily make you think or try to analyze in order to piece together the “bigger picture”, but instead looks to simply document the hardships of life and what some people will face in their lifetimes. Because of this, it’s easy for me to overlook any significant issues I have, as I think the film accomplishes what it sets out to do: tell a beautiful story about a beautiful boy.