Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy follows a married couple (Michael Sheen’s Bill and Maria Bello’s Kate) as they’re forced to cope with the shocking suicide of their teenage son (Kyle Gallner’s Sam), with his death compounded by the eventual revelation that he executed several students and teachers in a deadly school shooting. Director Shawn Ku has infused Beautiful Boy with an incredibly low-key sensibility that’s heightened by both Sheen and Bello’s raw, consistently engrossing work, and it’s certainly worth noting that Ku deserves credit for avoiding the temptation to pepper the proceedings with melodramatic confrontations and episodes. Ku instead keeps the focus squarely on Bill and Kate’s ongoing efforts at dealing with the horrific situation, which ensures that the movie isn’t always as engrossing as one might’ve expected (ie Ku’s approach is just so subdued). It’s worth noting that the movie rarely packs the emotional punch that its subject matter seems to have promised, and there’s little doubt that the film’s meandering narrative ultimately does become something of a problem. (To be fair, Beautiful Boy is quite compelling right up until about the one-hour mark, after which point the whole thing begins to feel more like an actor’s showcase than anything else.) In the end, Beautiful Boy is a well-intentioned effort that deserves praise for its refusal to rely on salacious elements, yet it’s finally difficult not to wish Ku had included a few elements designed to consistently hold the viewer’s interest.

**1/2 out of ****