Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy is beautiful.

Its beauty lies in the honest and real way it shows the effect on the parents, family and community. It is powerful, emotional and altogether well made.

I like that I haven't seen a movie like this before. This is something happening in our country but we don't talk about it. We don't do anything before or after to help those affected; especially not the family of the culprit.

The acting is spot on. Maria Bello and Martin Sheen were amazing. Alan Tudyk was just right. He played the supportive,shocked brother/uncle. But he was there for his sister in just the way a good brother would be. Alan was the reason I went to see this movie and he was in it for quite a while.

Don't be put off by the subject matter. This movie is a great character study. It is well made and worth seeing. I'm glad I saw it. I'd go again.

Beautiful Boy is not a fun movie to watch. Although arrestingly realistic, it can be a pretty painful ordeal to endure. In fact, it feels like such an immaculate representation of what it must be like to live through a horrific tragedy that one feels uneasy, restless, and depressed for hours afterward. So – know that going into the theater.

As the story begins, a college freshman named Sammy is calling his parents at home to check in. Mom Kate (Maria Bello) is a typical concerned parent, wanting her child to do well; Dad Bill (Michael Sheen) asks is Sam needs any money and is doing well, and he hangs up. The next morning, the terrible news: Sam has shot 18 students and teachers in his college before killing himself.

The movie wisely shows us nothing of the massacre; its focus is on the aftermath. Kate and Bill are staked out by the media. They escape to her brother's house to live with him, his wife, and their young son. They are vilified on television and online, particularly on Sam's Facebook. Their parenting is constantly questioned. In short time, they are questioning themselves: Did they make this happen? Kate and Bill had been drifting apart for some time, to the point where Bill was actively looking for a new place to live. The tragedy doesn't immediately bring them together, and it doesn't immediately drive them farther apart. Rather, they each drift some more, apart not just from each other but from reality. They blame themselves. They blame each other. They don't blame anyone. They continue on.

There's hardly a note in the movie that doesn't ring true. These characters are not caricatures, and they aren't archetypes, either. Both Bill and Kate seem completely believable, and with the tragedies in places such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, they are characters who very much feel like they could be living next door to us right now. That they are trashed and widely hated is understandable, and luckily neither character lacks the self-awareness to grasp why people are so mad. Bill reasons that the public wants to believe that the couple feels bad about what their son has done. They do, of course. They show their deepening anguish in different ways, but their devastation is complete. Their lives are seemingly ruined.

But this is not a movie without any hope. The subject matter is gruesome, but it's not tiresome. What we see are real reactions from realistic people. There are no real good guys, just a couple of people who've suddenly lost their way. Whether they regain it is almost immaterial, just as it's almost immaterial whether they regain it together. For us, it's the journey from their discovery through the passage of a week or so that's the true endgame. Neither does the film wallow in sentimentality for the sake of making us feel good. The true moments of joy are fleeting, just as they can be in real life. Even a dark movie can contain passionate performances.

An unsettling account of what might happen if your son became a mass murderer, it paints a picture of a family torn up over their child's actions and the new perception the rest of the world sees them in. I don't think I could cope with the endless barrage of Press at the door, nor the loss of friends or stares in the street from total strangers. Then there's the questions: Could I have done anything to stop it? Was his state of mind caused by my own inattention? Did I show him enough love?

This is an impossible situation for the parents to deal with, especially as they were on the edge of divorce even before these tragic events transpired. But all they have left is each other, and the film demonstrates their new found alliance against a hostile public. The performances couldn't be bettered, and the remorse you feel for this couple is palpable as everyone seems, in the absence of their dead offspring, to make them the scapegoats. It's not their fault. They loved their son. Sometimes, children just go bad. After all, I don't think Hitler's parents had any idea of the monster they were raising, did they?

At first, I hated the last scene. Too many unresolved plot threads, not enough resolution. But the more I think about it, it makes sense. Connect your own dots. Imagine your own follow-up. I would like to say they'll be fine, but I have my doubts... 7/10

The catastrophe is looming like in a camp horror movie in the opening of this well-acted film about one of our time's biggest taboos, school-shootings. Which is why it doesn't feel like a spoiler revealing that Beautiful Boy explores the aftermath of one such, seen from the point of view of the killer's parents. And through the sensitive, powerful performances of Michael Sheen and Maria Bello, the film manages to stay on the right side of melodrama.

The film received some notice at various film festivals, such as Toronto International Film Festival and San Sebastián International Film Festival, but was a box-office failure.

In this nearly terrifying age where our children are growing significantly faster than we want them to, fear, anxiety, and near paranoia starts to overtake the best of parents. In America, we have witnessed, in this generation alone, some of the most evil ever conducted by mankind in all of history; the fall of the twin towers, the war in Iraq, the shooting massacre in Virginia Tech, all terrible staples in my memory and I'm not even thirty yet. What other horrors will this lifetime bring? As a new father, I want to wrap my daughter Sophia in a bubble and never let her see the light of day for fear of what she may either endure or be influenced by. Shawn Ku's Beautiful Boy examines the aftermath of a young man, Sammy, that commits a mass shooting at his school and ultimately takes his own life. Bill (Michael Sheen) and Kate (Maria Bello) are your average married couple. Held back by grief, guilt, and rage, Bill and Kate undertake the scrutiny from the presses and the families as the sole reasons for young Sammy's demise. How could you move on from a nightmare you couldn't wake up from? Ku takes on the story with ferocity, examining a vast subject, which perks our ears up and raises our eyebrows. Ultimately Ku fails at getting down to the emotional center of this tale. The narrative picks up rather quickly from the beginning but loses pace and theme quickly. It's not necessarily a failure on Ku's part or co-writer Michael Armbruster, simply not as evolutionary in terms of independent filmmaking. The premise is enticing enough to withstand its flaws and it does have moments of brilliance, especially in the scenes following the shooting. However, it's the powerful performances of Michael Sheen and Maria Bello that hook the viewer in and safely guide throughout. Michael Sheen delivers his finest performance since his towering work in Stephen Frears' The Queen. Sheen attacks the character unlike anything seen from him before. He is engaged and delivers the emotional peril of a heartbroken father attempting to pick up the pieces in the most magnificent ways possible. Sheen invites the viewer into his world, showing the ugliest and worst parts about him, and letting us form our own opinion. Downright brilliant. Maria Bello, who I fell in love with in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, handles Kate with care, love, and ease. Bello's precision and dedication to the craft stands nearly on the top of most actresses today. It also equals one of her finest works in years. Her heart-on- the-sleeve approach not only allows us to respect Kate but it transforms her into a clear sign and example of masterclass acting. Where it can easily be taken over the top, Bello holds it right to the edge, never pushing us over. In a rare and personal plea, these two performances should well be on the Oscar radar. As a small and obviously personal film, Michael Sheen and Maria Bello deliver clear and cut, two of the most worthy performances of award's recognition this year. It's reminiscent of the same feeling Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams delivered in their powerful works in last year's Blue Valentine. In his briefest scenes, Kyle Gallner (Sammy) boils his performance to the rim and delivers a clever and daring performance. Beautiful Boy has raw and emotional power without falling all over itself with melodrama, but it does come up short in some narrative regards. But with these two talented actors in tow, the film will knock your socks right off in simple artistry.

Read more reviews at Awards Circuit dot com.