Beautiful Boy
2018
**½
Director: Felix van Groeningen
Cast: Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan, Jack Dylan Grazer, Kaitlyn Dever, LisaGay Hamilton, Timothy Hutton, Andre Royo
This biographical drama depicts journalist David Sheff's attempts to help his teenage son Nic overcome drug addiction. The screenplay is based on their respective books Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction and Tweak: Growing Up on Methaphetamines. Felix van Groeningen's first film in English tells a moving but sanitised personal story about the effects of addiction. It's mostly told from David's perspective, which weakens the impact of the drama as we see Nic when he's clean but rarely when he's at his lowest ebb. Although Timothée Chalamet gives a strong performance, at no point does he look like he is a drug addict. At times, the soundtrack drowns out the dialogue in a distractingly loud volume.
