Everything. It’s what all good parents want to do for and give to their children to help them succeed in life. It also demonstrates that their undying love will prevail, even through the most dire of circumstances.
This is a sentiment reflected but also put to the ultimate test in “Beautiful Boy,” directed by Felix van Groenigen and co-written by Groenigen and Luke Davies. Based on the memoirs of a real-life father and son, it is a hard-hitting and heartbreaking look at an epidemic which holds a countless number of young people and their families hostage, especially in today’s day and age.
Freelance journalist David Sheff (Steve Carell) walks into his 18-year-old son Nic’s (Timothee Chalamet) empty bedroom in the middle of the night. Like any concerned father, he calls the local hospital in the hope Nic will not be there. Several days later, Nic returns and is promptly checked into a 28-day rehab.
David finds him wandering the streets after an early exit, and Nic finds himself back in a new facility. The stint seems to do him some good, and he starts college to follow in his father’s footsteps as a writer. He also meets a girl and is invited over to her parent’s house for dinner one night.
He goes to use the bathroom and spies the variety of prescriptions in the medicine cabinet. He takes some and proceeds to initiate a chain of intoxicated and lucid moments which includes him spending time with his enabling mother (Amy Ryan) in Los Angeles.
Select use of ambient music throughout the film effectively lends a foreboding sense that with every injection of heroin or puff of crystal meth, Nic is bringing himself closer to the verge of death. Particularly frightening is a scene when such music is combined with David paging through one of Nic’s notebooks and finds it riddled with images of drug paraphernalia and writing devolving into undecipherable gibberish. The accompanying pulsating and ominous notes mirror the panicked heartbeat of a father stunned by the damage these drugs have inflicted on his son.
Ever since appearing in “Little Miss Sunshine,” Carell has displayed an undeniable knack for drama as well as comedy. He brings such a world-weariness and conflict to David that some parents may see even in themselves. He wants to help his son but struggles with deciding how many second chances one deserves, and at what point does some “tough love” need to be instituted to save someone’s life?
Building upon his nomination last year for “Call Me by Your Name,” Chalamet shows he is a young talent to be reckoned with. He effectively balances moments of sheer likability with those of manic belligerence and deep depression, demonstrating the roller coaster ride of emotions that is addiction.
“Beautiful Boy” makes no reservations about overcoming this deadly disease. Many will relapse multiple times before attaining sobriety, and addiction is one of the leading causes of death for people under the age of 50.
However, hope lies in the realization that family and other support is out there; you just have to be willing to seek it out. However cliché it may seem, taking it one day at a time may mean the difference between life and death.
