Beautiful Boy

This is a film about the parents of a teenager being responsible for a school massacre. It's not about the violence, but about the nightmare it is to be the parents of what has been a nice boy, doing atrocities.

This film is about coping, about dealing with something that can't be undone, about getting through, about reconciliation, about trying to move on. and it succeeds well. but don't expect this to be a drama filled with excitement. this is made give bot expressions and hope. It's a love story, and an unusual one, about surviving the impossible.

Maria Bello and Michael Sheen does another great acting job here. I'm not too fond of the clipping technique or the camera movements here. But it doesn't ruin the storytelling. when the film takes an unexpected turn, it adds to the reality of it. It's not easy what they are going through. We follow the reactions, the realization and the up-waking from the sorrow.

Very realistically told I guess in every aspect, and interesting as it's just seen from the parent's point of view. That is both interesting and important, as this is rarely a view of such a case which we rarely think about and experience. In a way this film both gives us the feeling, and an impression of there still being hope even after an unspeakable tragedy like this.

Meat Loaf is turning up in a y role as a motel clerk.

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.

The first forty-five minutes of Beautiful Boy, I must admit, were minutes that included strong acting and harsh realism. The whole plot of the film is hard to really grab a hold of and decipher it, since really, it is a story that is just so hard to comprehend. But one too many things go wrong with this film that are results of maybe the film's own personal setbacks, and the screenplay's too.

Bill (Sheen) and Kate (Bello) are a middle-class couple with a son in his Freshman year of College. The son is Sam Carroll, played by Kyle Gallner who, if you recall, was in Kevin Smith's most recent work Red State as the horny teenager who fell pray to a radical, religious cult. Sam is troubled, ignored, and underestimated. Bill and Kate are shocked and in denial when they get the news the next day that their son walked into his morning class, with a handgun, and opened fire on his teacher and classmates.

Now is the part we rarely think about when it comes to tragedies like school shootings - the aftermath for the shooter's parents. Their whole life has just went from mediocre to worse in a matter of a second. They are unfairly blamed, stamped with the seal of "bad parents," and are now trying to save their already dying marriage by holding onto the only one who knows their pain.

It's heartbreaking to think about both of the affected sides in an incident like this. Not only have many lost their life, but the ones who were the parents of the killed now have to go on and struggle to find their ability to cope with the sudden change. It's hard on everyone.

Michael Sheen and Maria Bello create pretty well acted chemistry, but ultimately, the film is its own worst enemy. Beautiful Boy was shot was a 16mm camcorder meaning that the picture quality isn't stellar compared to what is the norm now. That doesn't bring the film down as much as it is how the film works with its low budget. The color scheme is nothing but bleak - gray and black only hit the screen, which might be parallel to the subject matter I'm not sure. But it just seems like it wasn't meant to be this way.

The directing by Shawn Ku doesn't do too much justice either. During some of the intense and believable fight scenes between Sheen and Bello, they are usually victim to "swift pans" which is where a shot, instead of cutting to the other person talking it just spins right over to that person. It's sloppy, and is extremely distracting from what the film is trying to show.

The screen writing saves the film majorly here, yet it lacks one fatal flaw - it's emotionless. We feel sad and a little gloomy, sure, but just thinking about the premise might have made people shed a few tears. The film is free from waterworks, and this is coming from a guy who cries during My Girl, Stand By Me, and Toy Story 3.

It might seem like I'm being way too critical, but once you get past those minor setbacks, Beautiful Boy truly is a pretty good film. It explores a field rarely shown and thought about. We don't really think about the parents of the murderer, or how they are affected.

One sub-plot I wish the film would've explored was maybe having one of the neighbor's kids being killed and then the aftermath of between the couple of the killer and the couple of the victim. Imagine the victim's couple was close friends with the shooter's, and then think about how much of a war would've went on with the neighbors. I feel that that would've made a great little addition to a film already very limited.

Beautiful Boy is a good first effort for a plot like this, and hopefully, more films will explore this topic with a heftier budget and further pursuing of the story would occur. There is a film coming out pretty soon called We Need to Talk About Kevin, and from reading the plot and details of it, it seems Beautiful Boy wanted to be something just like that. It will most likely suffer by comparison when that comes out, when really, its setbacks are some that you just can't really overcome.

Starring: Michael Sheen, Maria Bello, and Kyle Gallner. Directed by: Shawn Ku.

It seems that Hollywood, especially lately, has been in the habit of giving us films dealing with parents suffering the loss of a child. We see them scream, we see them cry, we see them go through the same routine. Beautiful Boy takes this theme and puts a unique, much more tragic, spin on it. Michael Sheen and Maria Bello play parents who lose their college-age son, but worse is their son died after shooting up his school. So along with them having to grieve the loss of their boy, they have to suffer the scrutiny of the media attacking their son and them publicly, along with fighting themselves in trying to figure out what led to this awful thing happening. They fight with whether they're responsible, whether they should take time to grieve or try to go back into things and as many other things as you can think of in this struggle for normalcy in understanding when everything else is fighting against them.

Of course anything dealing with themes like this gives way to a lot of opportunity for melodrama. There's a subplot with a novelist that is very silly and expected and a few other scenes that rang false, but for the most part the film was surprisingly honest and from the heart. These characters suffer in real ways and even though the film initially splits the two into stereotypes, Bello having the hysterical screams and disbelief and Sheen with the stunned silence, as it progresses they both go through phases of devastation, denial and just a need to understand and get past it. It doesn't do anything particularly unique in how they grieve, but the two performers make you feel everything these characters go through. They bring a lot of power to their roles and it can definitely hit very hard at times.

Both Sheen and Bello have always been fine actors who rarely get the chance to demonstrate their immense talents. Here they are given full opportunity to let their skills show and neither of them hesitate to do so. Whether they are having a shouting match in a hotel room, consoling one another in tears or just silently trying to deal with this huge tragedy, it's hard to take your eyes off either of them. It definitely goes down the expected path, but these two make it well worth watching with their powerhouse performances and I did admire the slight turn on what had kind of become a tired setup. Making the son this kind of person added a lot of layers to the struggle these two had to go through.

Kate (Maria Bello) and Bill (Michael Sheen) have been struggling with their marriage for years and have decided to give it one final go before actually calling it quits. One night while planning their huge family vacation, their son Sam (Kyle Gallner) calls and seems quite out of it. Both Kate and Bill seem worried but feel that Sam is just having a rough time during his first semester away at college. The next day, life goes on as normal until the couple is notified that their has been a mass shooting at their son's college. Its only a matter of hours before Bill and Kate's already troubled life gets worse as they learn that Sam is not only dead, but the one who began to shoot up the school. A raw, realistic, and heart-wrenching look into our society ensues...

Man, do I love movies like this! I love movies that dare to tackle subject matters that our society just completely ignores. Beautiful Boy is not only a realistic tale about a crumbling marriage, but also a unique look at the family of a trouble college student who did the unthinkable. In a time where school shootings are at an all time high, there comes a movie like this that dares to examine the subject matter from a unique perspective. For years after mass shooting at various schools like Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, and of course the notorious Columbine, its about time some filmmaker dared to take a look into this subject and from the parents point of view.

When we hear about school shootings, we always think about the crazy kid who shot up the school, but we never question for a second, what about the parents and how are they taking the news. The media tends to point the blame at the parents and state that they must have screwed the kid up and caused him/her to do that. Why purely blame the parents? Why isn't it on our society? The media? Or even just the large amount of hate in this world. No one can deny that there are some crazy people in this world, but the question that remains is who is to blame and what would ever bring a person to take on such horrific action? No one knows and this film doesn't necessarily answer that questions, but instead does show how hard the parents not only take the loss, but how it makes them feel as people who have to live with knowing what their child is a killer.

While this film not only tackles that difficult subject matter; it also takes a brutally honest look at divorce and the basic struggles of every day life. Many husbands and wives stay together for the kids in our society today. I personally know several people that have stood together for the years when their marriage was on the rocks. Beautiful Boy shows this with Bill and Kate throughout the film and how the couple goes through periods where their love is strong and where it is weak. There is a huge fight scene near the end of the film in which Kate and Bill begin to violently argue about the relationship and whose fault it is that Sam turned out the way he did. That scene would bring tears to the eyes of any couple who has a kid or wants a child. It is gripping, raw, and unforgettable.

In order for this film to work as perfectly as it did, it clearly depended on Maria Bello and Michael Sheen to give realistic and believable performances. Needless to say, they nail it and gave some powerful and gut-wrenching performances. The chemistry and tension that they face is as real as any that I have seen in real life. When they are happy on screen, you are happy and when they are sad and miserable, you are sad and miserable. This film is clearly a character study of Kate and Bill and while there are some great supporting roles its really only those two who we as audience members are focused on. Bello and Sheen are the ones knock this film out of the park and give some truly Oscar worthy performances.

I applaud director/writer Shawn Ku as well as co-writer Michael Armbruster for creating a film that makes our society look at life, marriage, and adolescent violence from a whole new perspective. The script was well written and the scenes were placed perfectly throughout the film to make the movie keep the audience wanting more. The emotional scenes in this film were beautifully captured by Shawn Wu, who seems to have an eye for detail on capturing raw emotion from his actors. With Wu's direction, Beautiful Boy feels makes the audience feel as though we are dealing with the events that are taking place on screen and as filmmakers that is a great accomplishment.

At the end of the day, Beautiful Boy is definitely not the feel good film of the summer, but is probably one of the most powerful and realistic films that I have seen in many years. It's real, raw, and brutally honest and I love that about indie films. I love feeling good when I go to a movie, but I also like movies that tackle issues that are relevant to our society today. This film does that and while many may not appreciate how honest of a film this is, I did and applaud everyone involved for taking on a film of this caliber. Beautiful Boy will more than likely be one of those films that around December of this year that will make it's way onto my " best of" list for the year.