Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy is a film that has nothing to say (a few informational titles at the end bear the sole message). It merely shows pain and attempts to be moving. The first half is at least remarkably well structured. The narrative does not move forward, but only – often by means of sound bridges – sinks into itself (like a person on drugs). For no apparent reason, the filmmakers abandon the fragmentary, highly subjective narration and alternating flashbacks of a father and his son, and the rest is conventional misery porn with a terrible selection of music and spasmodic actors (Chalamet is capable of great acting, but needs stronger directorial guidance; here, he seems to be a bad Robert De Niro imitator) who, instead of normal sentences, deliver lines like “I missed you more than the sun misses the moon” with a straight face. However, I admit that I felt like crying at the end. Because of the wasted two hours of my life that I will never get back. Perhaps I am being overly harsh, but I have a strong aversion to this kind of film, which uses someone’s actual misfortune for terribly cheap and self-serving exploitation. 20% (13.12.2018)

Even though Beautiful Boy has a strong theme that only life itself could have written, the film still didn't grab me and ground me as much as I would have expected it to. Steve Carell took on the role of a father who wants to help his wayward son find his way back in a really convincing way, with Maura Tierney as his wife perfectly seconding him. Timothée Chalamet's performance wasn't bad, but at times I thought he overacted and pushed the envelope a bit too much. It's a shame that the film didn't really get going until twenty minutes before the end, where it offered a couple of stronger scenes. That said, I have to commend the nice soundtrack and the way the narrative intertwined the two timelines. (02.04.2020)

After the festive frolic in Van Groeningen's previous film, Belgica, a guilty detox simply had to come. And it's never good, never cool, and most importantly, never fun or fulfilling. Beautiful Boy takes an interesting and uncharacteristic premise from its subject matter, chronicling the fall to drug lows of an intelligent teenager from a liberal, secure, trouble-free, and modern family. The impasse of his understanding father, trying every possible way to positively support the elusive problem, is a crucial superstructure over other anti-drug films. But this is also its problem, because the film simply lacks an edge, even seems to consistently make sure it doesn't have one. It lacks real pain, the necessary naturalism and grime. Hence the biggest problem, which is that constantly linking the storylines of the father and son, who themselves can’t understand each other, leaves the film lacking its own language and thus chooses to let other works speak for it. Thus it constantly pastes distinctive songs (from Nirvana to Sigur Rós, Zola Jesus to Bikini Kill) one on top of the other, and when it has to speak for itself, it lets a Bukowski poem do the talking. (03.04.2019)

The painful story of a father and his drug-addicted son, written by life itself, is enhanced by very convincing performances by Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet. The proverbial icing on the cake is the absolutely perfect soundtrack. The final excerpt, compiled from the thoughts and feelings of Nic Sheff, caught my attention so much that I got the urge to read both books. (85%) (03.09.2021)