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Friday, June 17, 2011

MOVIE REVIEW
Beautiful Boy

The Taint Of Separation; The Mark Of Parenthood



Michael Sheen as Bill and Maria Bello as Kate in Shawn Ku's drama "Beautiful Boy". 
Anchor Bay
 

by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW
Fri
day, June 17, 2011

"Beautiful Boy" opens with a jagged home video scene on a beach and narration by a male voice.  We see a family, cheerful and vibrant.  The son seems happy but the narration portends something more grim, and we realize that Shawn Ku's drama will become a tense, grim exercise.

Written by Mr. Ku and Michael Armbruster, "Beautiful Boy" is more about the disintegration of a relationship and family prior to a horrific event that borrows much from the 2007 shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, than it is about that event itself.

Kate (Maria Bello) and Bill (Michael Sheen) are a married couple in Los Angeles whose separation is impending.  They are already living separate lives in a large vacant house, auditioning for the inevitable.  They barely look each other in the eye.  The issues in their now-fractured relationship arose long before their now-painfully unhappy son Sammy (Kyle Gallner) angrily shattered their world and his own.

Cinematographer Michael Fimognari's camera floats, sometimes annoyingly but mostly to effectively build tension in close-ups of Kate and Bill and everyone else who gets soaked into their double-whammy situation.  Mr. Ku deliberately doesn't tie Sammy to Kate and Bill so there's an eerie, discomfiting feeling, a disconnect and alienation, which works well for only so long, even as much of the story remains empty and vacant.

The vacancy in the film's narrative threads is left for the actors to fill with their work, and Mr. Sheen in particular excels with a performance of range.  He methodically gnaws away like a dog on an oversized bone whose marrow has already been sucked dry, until he gets to the hows and whys of his son's violent disposition.  It's a performance that is striking.  Because Mr. Sheen's turn is a disciplined bit of slow-burn acting one can forgive the histrionics that rough domestic dramas like this and others ("Rabbit Hole", "In A Better World", "In The Bedroom") will undoubtedly showcase. 

I don't know that "Beautiful Boy" is depressing as much as it is a psychological analysis of despair and helplessness.  Everyone is helpless.  One character advises Bill in the most honest and heartfelt way: "You wouldn't have known what to say anyway." 

Mr. Ku tries and succeeds with the film's atmosphere and dread but his and Mr. Armbruster's story doesn't have the bite or weight that it should.  Is "Beautiful Boy" about Kate and Bill's son, or is it about the parents' struggle to understand him?  The film is somewhat indecisive on this question, spending time in both arenas, sometimes with additional characters who have their own agendas.  Some of those characters work against "Beautiful Boy", pulling it out of its intense and intimate environment, as do the film's narration and bookends, all of which do not belong or fit here.

For reasons that become clear, the local media chase Kate and Bill, who try to get a moment's peace.  They seek refuge elsewhere.  They can't escape reality.  There's a scene in particular that wisely depicts the complexities shared by the two characters.  It's a lengthy scene, and the film's best.  By this time you may have, as I was, been inured to laughing but watch the interplay between Ms. Bello and Mr. Sheen ("Midnight In Paris").  The moment is pure, and real.

Maria Bello combines a halting awareness and realism to project Kate so very well.  Carefully calibrated work, Ms. Bello seems to intentionally leave pieces of Kate to be filled and completed.  Holding back Kate and layering her evolution in a disciplined way works while aspects of the film do not storywise.

Sometimes "Beautiful Boy" goes places it isn't expected to and remains discreet in its showing of violence, as if to signal that it has good, non-exploitive intentions.  Still, I ended up leaving what was at best an adequate film remembering the fine lead performances, wondering whether Mr. Ku's film was entirely worthy of them. 

With: Alan Tudyk, Deidrie Henry, Bruce French, Moon Bloodgood, Austin Nichols, Cody Wai-Ho Lee, Meat Loaf Aday, Logan South.

Also read this review here



"Beautiful Boy" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for some language and a scene of sensuality.  The film's running time is one hour and 40 minutes.


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