Director: Shawn Ku
Producers: Lee Clay, Eric Gozlan
Starring: Michael Sheen, Mario Bello, Kyle Gallner, Alan Tudyk, Moon Bloodgood
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 100 min.

(4/5)

Releasing on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow is likely one of the more depressing yet interesting pictures of the year. Dare I say it’s a concept film? We’ve seen many a movie produced about the tragedy of high school or college campus shooting sprees, particularly after the Columbine incident (Van Sant’s Elephant being an excellent example). But none, to me knowledge, have looked at the events from the perspective of the assailant’s immediate family after the shootings. Beautiful Boy takes this very idea and gives the audience all manner of situations and scenarios probably rarely otherwise thought about.

Mario Bello and Michael Sheen play the parents of Sammy; a college freshman who inexplicably walks into his classroom one sunny morning and kills several of his classmates and teachers before turning the gun on himself. We see none of this however. We just live in the almost surreal world of the aftermath of which his parents, friends and relatives are forced to wander. Of course melodrama of the highest order ensues, but in reality, how else would a story like this evolve? If there was a more apropos story requiring the use of melodrama I’ve not heard of it. But there’s a lot more to Beautiful Boy than just crying and screaming. A lot more.

Imagine if a loved one committed a crime so utterly atrocious and public, like a school shooting, that there just isn’t any excuse, reasoning or game plan for the aftermath. Neighbors shun you, media hounds you, late night talk show hosts make inappropriate comments and victims families have a mourning rage inside them impossible to describe. All of this goes on night and day, all the while you’re facing the devastation of losing a child and trying to come to grips with why he did what he did. The parents of Sammy deal with all of these things, in what I can only assume, in astonishingly realistic ways. The stages of anger, mourning, blaming, remorse and denial are all here and they all spring to life at different times from different triggers.

Bello and Sheen are obviously the focus here and play out their roles with stunning accuracy and gust. Sheen in particular seems to go through the most change throughout the film and teeters back and forth from logical to emotional impressively well several times. He’s trying to pick up the pieces and move on; as if it were that easy. Meanwhile the mother grieves and struggles, constantly looking for answers and reasons. Of course there aren’t any to be found and it becomes a vicious cycle. As the movie wears on, it’s interesting to watch they way in which these two characters interact with one another and eventually sort of switch roles. A fascinating character study.

What doesn’t work 100% are a couple of smaller plot contrivances that are just there to try to add fuel to the fire. The couple is already struggling in their marriage and this act may ironically be what brings them closer together. The mother is also a book editor and her client is secretly planning to write a story about their situation. These things aren’t terrible but do feel a little bit forced; or simply a case of trying to hard. The latter is also barely glossed over and should probably be cut from the movie entirely as it’s just needless or just one example of the many “ridiculous” hardships the family must suffer through. The former is a bit more intertwined in the overall arc of the story and does just make the dynamic of the couple more interesting, but also feels a little bit like the screenwriter was going for too much. Isn’t it enough that their son rampaged a college campus then blew his head off? I think there’s more than enough substance there to hang a movie on – asking more from the audience is stretching it a bit.

Now, call me callous or insensitive, but because the film is so far out of the realm of anything I could ever possibly conceivably experience, I have to admit a certain amount of emotional detachment. If one has children maybe this is something one could latch onto. But since this scenario is far out of my plane of existence, it’s really hard to relate to anything on screen. Of course there’s sympathy to be given and depression and inner feelings might be exposed, but it’s more “fun” and interesting to just be a fly on the wall and see where these characters are taken next. There’s simply no way to relate and so the viewer just becomes an observer to the side of an event we never get to see.

Of course these things are more or less nitpicks in an otherwise fantastic film. As a directorial debut you’ll be hard pressed to find anything this progressive in its thinking, structure and visual prowess. Top notch performances all around (three cheers for Alan Tudyk in continuing onward – albeit with something as far away from the comedy side as one could possibly get) and once again a pretty gripping story that gives so many realistic angles to a grim (but admittedly fascinating) series of events. Nothing really feels very good at any point throughout the movie, but that’s kind of the point. And the point in Beautiful Boy hits quickly and sharply in all the right ways.