Review of The Beaver (2011) by Joel M — 14 Mar 2014

Leave it to Beaver to make a depressed man go profoundly insane is pretty much a viable brief description of the flick "The Beaver". Jodie Foster, yea that Jodie Foster, directed "The Beaver", I guess she has Beaver Fever.

"The Beaver" stars Mel Gibson as Walter Black, a CEO of a wealthy toy manufacturing company who suffers from depression, and suddenly adopts a beaver puppet to be his sole means of communication.

Obviously, that does not sit too well with his wife Meredith, played by Foster herself. Their marriage is already on the rocks due to Walter's depression, so for a beaver to enter into the picture it chops away more to the demise of their matrimony.

Walter and Meredith have two sons; one is a teenager named Porter who loathes his father and is also dealing with mental issues himself; the other one is the younger child Henry who adores his father and even takes a liking to the beaver.

Porter falls for a classmate Norah, who hires Porter to write up a research paper for her. Norah's mental ark is also filled with challenges due to the death of a family member. I am glad that Foster took on the role of a serious topic being "depression" in a movie, but she could have done it in a more constructive way; there were too many constant irregularities and unstructured depictions in her orchestration of "The Beaver" and how it dealt with depression.

I wish there was more of a clearer understanding what lead Walter to his depression, and what proper avenues one should take when they are diagnosed with this mental illness. I guess Foster took the "it's better to be safe than sorrow" road in presenting us "The Beaver".

Screenwriter Kyle Killen was not exactly killing me with his scribe of "The Beaver", but sporadically it did have its bright spots; especially in the beaver puppet uproars. Gibson was better as "Mad Max" than "Sad Walter", but I give him credit for his daring and one can also say dual performance here as Walter and The Beaver.

Foster looked bored directing herself here with her monotonous performance as Meredith. Anton Yelchin got in overacting mode with his work as Porter; so yea, his Porter was not at stake and was a bit overdone.

I did enjoy Jennifer Lawrence's supporting performance as Norah, but maybe I am being bias because I always hunger for a little Jennifer L. in a movie; and I am not talking Lopez either. It won't be terribly depressing if you check out "The Beaver", but you should not be hanging out for it either just like some "puppet on a string" or a hand for that matter.

*** Average.