Beautiful Boy

This was a problematic film. Ironically, it was simultaneously under-cooked with thin characterisation and a superficial emotional narrative, and over-baked with its heavy handedness and pedantic handling of an over-long and repetitive story. Someone ought to tell director Felix Von Groeningen that "show-not-tell" also extends to the music in the film, and not every song choice has to pointedly telegraph the expected emotional reaction he wants to illicit. Luckily the film was saved by a good - not great - performance by Timothée Chalamet (for great: see Benedict Cumberbatch in Patrick Melrose) and also the under-rated Maura Tierney who stole her scenes with Steve Carrell with her quiet, restrained performance.

This film would have benefited from being adapted into a prestige, limited series. Over four to six episodes, it would have given time and space for the characters to be developed into rounded (and complicated) individuals rather than just paper-cut cliches (again, see Patrick Melrose). The emotional bonds between them could also have been better explored especially the central father-son relationship. But instead, we were left with a heavy-handed and in-your-face depiction of their conflict.

There was definitely a worthy story to tell here, but with biographies like these, whereby the ending is already known, Von Groeningren did not manage to find a satisfying way to retell it. There was essentially a lack of urgency and narrative drive to engage the audience.

Cliches can work if there was emotional investment, but unfortunately not here, and we, the audiecne, were left with a repetitive cycle of tropes and cliches that felt empty and hollow. Perhaps, that was the point - to highlight the repetitive nature of drug addicts and recovery - but there sure could have been better ways to underpin that theme.

Chalamet was good here. But as involving as he was an actor, his performance lacked a transformative realism. We never really buy him truly as a drug addict. It seemed like he was perptually acting. No doubt that Chalamet will very likely get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor - they do love him - but thus far, even Sam Elliot in A Star is Born seemed more deserving to win it than him.

Carrell was ostensibly the lead in this film, but it never really felt like he owned the film. His relationship with Chalamet never felt genuine and it never felt like we really understood their dynamics. Sure, we know why, on an intellectual level, he behaved like that, but there was no complexity to his portrayal, and this was as much a screenplay issue as it was a character issue. Carrell, like Ryan Gosling in First Man, often mistakes the quiet, 100-yard stare, as deep, method acting, but at least Gosling adds a pursed-lip now and then, and eventually went beyond just that; Carrell never really did.

Tierney was the unsung star of the film with just a fraction of the screen time as her male co-stars. But with that one car scene (just like Elliot), she effused more emotional weight in the whole film than Carrell and Chalamet.

Amy Ryan rounded up the main cast, and sadly, she was underused. But her few scenes with Chalamet felt genuine and maternal. Definitely more so than Carrell's (although his scenes with the younger versions of Chalamet were more on point, albeit blatently emotionally-baiting).

One of the biggest distraction in the film was the music. Firstly, there was too much of it and secondly they were all too obvious in their telegraphing of emotions. Feel this! Feel that! Feel messed up!!

A Beautiful Boy was clearly an Oscar-baiting project, but the end result was a film that never achieve its potential. And this missed opportunity may likely not provide Chalamet the necessary forward momentum to win his Oscar (but I'm sure his time will come).