Beautiful Boy

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.

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.

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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.

Kate (Maria Bello) and Bill (Michael Sheen) are a struggling couple who are sleeping in separate rooms. He's looking at apartments while she still hopes to save the marriage with the next family vacation. Their son Sammy (Kyle Gallner) is away at college. He's miserable and he goes on a shooting spree killing himself and many others. The onslaught of media forces them to stay with her brother Eric (Alan Tudyk) and his wife Trish (Moon Bloodgood).

Bello and Sheen are using all their acting skills to drive this movie. The movie strips away all the power. The shooting takes place off screen. The movie doesn't allow Sammy to explain his actions. Kyle Gallner just doesn't have much screen time. It's all about the parents struggle to find meaning. It's a movie of misery. It's admirable but it grinds down the audience with its unrelenting bleakness.

It can be hard to evaluate a film such as this. Its striking realism is both a gift and a curse: seeing its protagonists in their naturally empty and shell-shocked state for much of the film doesn't make for entertaining viewing - nonetheless its emotional scenes pack such a weighty punch, heightened by Sheen and Bello's terrific performances, you can truly feel their agony.

While the fallout from the unconscionable number of tragedies that inspired this film tends to focus mainly on the perpetrator, then on the victims and their families, "Beautiful Boy" wisely forces its audience to think about the side of the story that is rarely heard.