Review of Beautiful Boy (2011) by Manny C — 13 Oct 2011

Every parents' worst fear is finding out their child's school is the setting of a mass shooting, but for one set of parents, they get the cops knocking at the door telling them theirs is not a victim, but the shooter, responsible for the deaths of 21 students.

That's the tragic premise of Beautiful Boy, from director Shawn Ku. It's a haunting film that will unnerve you. Maria Bello and Michael Sheen are terrific as Kate and Bill, the parents of the troubled teen. Ku and his co-screenwriter Michael Armbuster don't make their film a psychological case study. We barely even get a look at the son in question, Sammy (Kyle Gallner) a youngster alienated, especially when his attempt to get help from his parents goes unnoticed. This is especially painful when we view videos Sammy made in which he talks of a world that 'ravaged his heart'. But Ku doesn't even attempt to give an explanation for Sammy's actions. Instead he tries putting us inside the heads of his parents, left wondering if they're at all to blame for what Sammy did. It fractures an already fragile relationship between the two, who were already on the verge of separating, but tragically, the tragedy makes them realize they're all they have left.

Sheen and Bello anchor the film marvelously. Sheen superbly reveals a man defeated, and doing all he can to just turn his roiling emotions off, and Bello matches him step for step, nailing every devastating nuance. Their scenes together in a motel, their hiding place, reveals an intimacy that is at once heartbreaking and cathartic. They're performances cut deep, just like the movie.