Beautiful Boy is an interesting look at addiction from a perspective that we don’t often get in film, the parents.
Specifically for the most part we see Chalamet’s character spiral toward endless addiction to drugs from the perspective of his father, played phenomenally by Steve Carell.
One of the main themes of the film is that Carell does not recognise his son anymore , as if he is a completely different person than he was years earlier. We see this via flashbacks of fond memories that he has of his son, often intercut with the present day. This editing for the most part works really well and I think it really had a nice impact to the way I connected with it.
As a father myself (a young one) I felt quite connected to Carell’s great performance here, he really gives it his all and I felt he really was an absolute highlight for me.
Chalamet continues his string of really great performances with an extremely convincing addict , complete with ticks and erratic behaviour, along with a convincing father son relationship.
Beautiful Boy is a film that is at its core about two things, a father and son relationship being stretched to its limits and of course how addiction can absolutely ruin lives.
Cinematography is strong and in the end we get a pretty satisfying conclusion.
I’d definitely recommend Beautiful Boy, although I don’t feel like it went as dark as I could have.
