Beautiful Boy

Based on two separate books, Beautiful Boy follows Steve Carell’s David Sheff as he continually attempts to help his son (Timothée Chalamet’s Nic) kick his increasingly dangerous drug habit – with the narrative also detailing the impact that David’s intense focus (and Nic’s disregard for those around him) ultimately has on a variety of periphery figures (including Maura Tierney’s Karen, Kaitlyn Dever’s Lauren, and Amy Ryan’s Vicki). There’s little doubt that Beautiful Boy, which never quite becomes the searing drama one might’ve anticipated, fares rather poorly in its opening stretch, as filmmaker Felix Van Groeningen delivers a somewhat by-the-numbers endeavor that boasts few attributes designed to capture the viewer’s interest and attention – with the time-shifting structure unable, at the outset, to alleviate the decidedly generic vibe. It’s clear, then, that the picture improves incrementally as it progresses, with the inclusion of a few compelling sequences, coupled with Carell and Chalamet’s strong work here, going a long way towards compensating the often egregiously familiar subject matter – although the less-than-fresh trajectory of Nic’s character arc ensures, generally speaking, that Beautiful Boy is at its best when focused on the exploits of Carell’s exceedingly sympathetic protagonist. And while Van Groeningen’s stylish directorial choices tend to elevate the mostly pedestrian material, Beautiful Boy‘s repetitive atmosphere (ie Nic gets clean, relapses, gets clean again, relapses again, etc, etc) paves the way for an ineffective final third that hardly packs the emotional impact intended – which does, in the end, confirm the movie’s place as a well-intentioned yet wholly underwhelming (and entirely overlong) misfire.

** out of ****