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| Courtesy of Amazon Studios |
(Rated R for drug content throughout, language, and brief sexual material. Now playing exclusively at Regal Tara Cinemas in Atlanta but expanding in the coming weeks.)
It probably goes without saying that Beautiful Boy, a stark drama about a young man’s descent into drug addiction, as well as the father powerless to stop it, isn’t a fun watch. However, it’s certainly a compelling one thanks to the riveting performances at the heart of the film. Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet, both clearly gunning for Oscar nominations, keep the narrative interesting despite director Felix Van Groeningen’s inability to break out of the old Afterschool Special mode of cautionary tale.
The screenplay Van Groeningen co-wrote with Luke Davies (based on Beautiful Boy and Tweak, a pair of memoirs from father and son David and Nic Sheff) attempts to add a prestigious sheen to a story that viewers have seen many times before in various iterations. Still, the cyclical, repetitive nature of the recovery process means it becomes a grim endurance challenge after a while.
Carell, distancing himself even more from the comedic persona he’s best known for, plays David Sheff, a freelance journalist who has a loving relationship with charismatic, overachieving son, Nic (Chalamet, delivering more strong work following his breakthrough in last year’s Call Me by Your Name). However, that relationship is pushed to its breaking point as Nic begins to experiment with drugs, rapidly escalating from marijuana to vastly more addictive substances like heroin and crystal meth.
After a few stints in rehab, David begins to realize Nic’s path won’t be an easy one and there’s nothing he can do to speed up the process. All David can do is be there to offer love and support, while also making sure Nic doesn’t bring further harm to the rest of their family – including Nic’s mom (Amy Ryan) and the younger children David has with his second wife (Maura Tierney). That’s not an easy realization for a guy whose career revolves around research, communication and problem-solving.
Thanks to fantastic work from Carell and Chalamet, as well as Ruben Impens’ beautiful cinematography, Beautiful Boy should certainly be a part of the awards season conversation. However, the overall quality of the film, its iffy chances of financial success and a middling critical reception, make it a long shot.
Grade: B-
Studio 54
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| Courtesy of A&E Indie Film |
There have been some legendary stories told about iconic New York nightclub Studio 54 over the last three decades. However, it has often been impossible to separate the truth from urban legend. A new documentary from Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor) attempts to get to the heart of the matter, especially with the cooperation of long-reticent, introverted co-owner Ian Schrager, but it puts the focus on all the wrong elements.
The film is ultimately entertaining and informative, but it spends far too long covering ground that most people interested in Studio 54’s history already know. Even someone who is only vaguely familiar with the story, like me, knows the basic beats. As a result, the first hour is a standard, run-of-the-mill documentary, even if it is fun to feel like you’re eavesdropping by looking at old photographs of famous people clearly wasted out of their minds, and barely-clothed wannabes hoping to catch their big breaks.
I mean, this is the kind of documentary in which you hear the interviewer ask a designer if he was aware he was creating a “sex pit,” to which the guy responds, “well, yeah.” It’s not like viewers won’t get their fill of salacious gossip. However, around the one-hour mark, the film causally drops a couple of bombshells that made me wonder why Tyrnauer wouldn’t structure the entire story around them.
Studio 54 also continued to pique my interest because it explained the backlash to disco in a way that made sense to me for the first time. Astute interviews point out it was essentially an economic reaction at heart. At the time, America was in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. People in the heartland were looking for people to blame and images of Studio 54's hedonism gave them plenty of scapegoats.
Their misery was the fault of rich people. It was the fault of gay people. It was the fault of New Yorkers. And it just so happened disco was a central hub for all those demographics – never mind that most of them didn’t actually cause this economic crisis. When has that ever prevented scared, angry people from assigning blame?
When Studio 54 is analyzing these elements and asking interesting people insightful questions, the documentary soars. Too bad it takes the film so long to get there.
Grade: B
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