It’s a heartbreaking thing to sit helpless watching a loved one struggle with inner turmoil and grief.
And short of that person being oneself or a family member, watching two of the big screen’s most beloved stars – Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet – play out this heart-wrenching story as father and son, is a not easy to watch without letting your emotions surface.
Carell and Chalamet star in Beautiful Boy, the new film based on the pair of memoirs written by David and Nic Sheff, a father and son whose stories show the painful perspectives of a son’s ongoing struggle with drug addiction. Beautiful Boy depicts David’s desperate determination and Nic’s recurring relapses, revealing there may be no escape from rescuing someone from something as merciless and addictive as harrowing chemical dependencies.
It’s nothing short of expert casting to see these actors inhabit these real-life roles – you might even wish Carell and Chalamet were part of your own family. Few other actors could make you feel as crushed as seeing a heartbroken Steve Carell playing a forlorn father figure. And which other young actors could make you feel as torn up inside as Hollywood’s latest heartthrob, Timothée Chalamet, throwing his promising life away?
There have been other films about the consuming nature of drugs and addiction, and there are familiar notes to Beautiful Boy that don’t exactly differentiate themselves from those other films. But what distinguishes Beautiful Boy, making it so moving and impactful, is its ability to show how addiction affects more than just the drug user, but the user’s larger circle as well. Other stories of addiction might have focused solely on Nic and his journey of substance abuse, but in seeing his father David, meandering around his son’s empty bedroom consumed in thought and worry, we see the fractures from all sides. David calls the police to report his son as a missing person early on but eventually is resigned to accept that Nic’s reliable absence signals that he is no longer missing, but altogether lost.
David and Nic’s stories of recovery, relapse, and the hope for redemption paint a poignant picture of what makes life so beautiful.
What distinguishes Beautiful Boy further is that we see the moments where Nic momentarily recovers, rather than portraying him in a total downward spiral. Short-term stints of sobriety are an honest part of the experience. Nic rides the waves as best he can until he is all but swallowed up by the sea. Seeing a strung-out Nic at the end of the film at his absolute worst stands as one of the most tear-jerking moments I’ve had this year.
There is such heart brought to this adaptation by director Felix van Groeningen. It’s felt in the chemistry of its stars, which also includes Maura Tierney and Amy Ryan as Nic’s worried step-mother and mother (whose contributions in the film are effective but largely underutilized, being a story of father and son grief). The flashbacks of Carell as David with the younger Nic (Kue Lawrence, Jack Dylan Grazer) paint the entire picture of this family’s story even more affecting.
Beautiful Boy is a powerful, heart-wrenching story that offers the most sympathetic portrait of addiction that I’ve seen in recent times. David and Nic’s stories of recovery, relapse, and the hope for redemption paint a poignant picture of what makes life so beautiful.
