“Beautiful Boy” (2018)
“Beautiful Boy” had every single element to shock us, to really go for our emotions and use them in a cheap way, but instead, it just strips all that way and tells us the story of a Dad that is lost and way over his head and just wants to save his beautiful son, this might be the reason you will love it or the reason why you don’t care about it.
The honesty and frontality were what really got us in this movie; it takes its time and slows just to increase our despair, and many times nothing really feels to pay off because that is how life is; many things happen. Then we feel forgotten, like the part Steve Carell tries drugs because it’s meant to be an act of despair that nothing changed for good or bad; this could be like many as a flawed movie, but is it?
It could if it wasn’t for two amazing performances; Steve Carell in a really low-key performance that shows once again that he is not just a comedy actor and can deliver extremely deep performances, how he shows the confusion and fear of not knowing what to do and how to deal with something that is not in his control is beautiful to watch and at the same time hard to watch.
Timothée Chalamet also shows why he is a rising star in Hollywood; he never goes too far, he never goes to the over-the-top performance that he easily could go for, and that was the key to making us connect and be with him all the way until we felt like giving up as his dad does.
To point out something that bothers Big J in this movie, sound editing and mixing, at some points of the viewing, it feels off-putting and breaks the connection with what is happening on screen; it felt like a horror movie setting jump scares.
“Beautiful Boy” is a beautiful movie that will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions; Little J cries, Big J gets angry, and we both feel hopeless, and that is something only a good movie with powerful performances can do; after watching it, we can’t stop wondering where was the Oscar nomination for this 2 great actors?
Have you seen this movie? If you did, what did you think of it?
What is for you, Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell’s best work?