The hope and misery of Beautiful Boy are captured in just 20 words delivered by Steve Carell’s character: “I had such grand plans — he’d graduate from college, do something amazing. Now, I just want him to not die.”
Beautiful Boy is a true story based on the lives and writings of David Sheff (Steve Carell) and his son Nicholas (Timothée Chalamet). When I talked with the film’s director, Felix Van Groeningen, he said he felt a serious connection to this story on many levels.
“I felt [what] the books did to me when I read them. … I hoped that when I turned it into film it could do the same thing to people,” he said.
The film is Van Groeningen’s first English project. Many of his previous films, including 2012’s Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown, deal with similar topics of families going through grief.
Van Groeningen felt some sense of art imitating life — his parents, like Nicholas Sheff’s parents, divorced, and Van Groeningen’s father died at an early age.
“The psychologist in me saw what happened in my family,” he said. “We only for very brief period in our lives had a perfect family, and then it fell apart. I often start from ideal families and make them go through some pretty dark things.”
The Sheff family similarly sees their lives fall apart throughout the film. Beautiful Boy brings audience members on twists and turns, sweetly convincing them that Nic is finally sober and then wrenching them back into his dark spiral of relapse. It evokes visceral reactions as you feel a deep disappointment in Chalamet’s character.
Instead of hiding behind the terms of addiction and drug use, the film shows you the specifics of how addicts behave. From his gaunt figure and sunken eyes to his sense of euphoria after sticking a needle in his arm, Chalamet portrays Nic in a way that skips no detail.
Chalamet is not the only actor who shines in the film. Amy Ryan shows the complicated role of a parent without custody of her child, trying to stay involved in his life. Maura Tierney gives a kind yet firm presence to being a stepmother. Carell, known usually for his comedic roles, shows his dramatic chops with this portrayal of a father with immense pride in his son.
Beautiful Boy is, at its most basic level, a story about parenting. The people who raised characters in this film are not without flaws. David miscalculated in his methods, eventually becoming, as Van Groeningen put it, “codependent on Nick’s addiction.” Families can learn a lot from this story, whether they are dealing with addiction or simply concerned about the possibility of it.
“There are no easy answers with addiction,” Van Groeningen said. “Seeing the story of a real family, with all their flaws, that did get through it, a family that believes in unconditional love — it’s a way to have conversations start about it. That’s the best I can do.”
The film is set to debut Oct. 19.
CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this article misspelled Sheff’s name. The article has been updated.
