Grief, Tragedy and Beauty in 'Beautiful Boy'

Beautiful Boy is not a dissection of a campus shooting, but rather a delicate study of grief. With his first full length feature, director Shawn Ku brings us an intimate view into the world a struggling married couple as they deal with the ramifications of not only the death of their only son, but the fact that he is viewed by the media as a monster. 

The film is at times heart wrenching as it explores the ebb and flow of grieving and what happens when it crashes into the banality of everyday life. Maria Bello (a Norristown native) and Michael Sheen are incredible pained parents who are faced with the unimaginable while their dead son is the subject of round the clock news coverage. 

While Beautiful Boy is more powerful in its silences and pregnant pauses than when the drama is elevated to screams, it is a decent indie effort.

Bill (Sheen) and Kate (Bello) live separate lives under the same roof. On the verge of a divorce, they are keeping up appearances and in the midst of planning a family vacation. Their son, Sammy (Kyle Gallner), a college freshman, calls late one night, but they don’t hear the quiver in his voice or see the pain on his face. Denial sets in as soon as the police show up at the door the next day.

To escape the media camped out on their front porch, they retreat to the house of Kate’s brother, Eric (Alan Tudyk), where Kate and Bill keep their distance even while sharing the same bed. As Kate takes to back-seat mothering her young nephew, and Bill takes to exercising, the alienation is obvious. They have nowhere to go, and they have no home since their family was destroyed.

Bill and Kate flee her brother’s to seek sanctuary in the anonymity of a crappy motel. It’s in the motel where they finally face the death of their son, the state of their marriage and are faced with the choice to either live together or separate.

“Beautiful Boy” is a small movie—its tight budget and shooting schedule is apparent—but the rawness and depth of performances are admirable. A somewhat difficult film to watch, I found myself ignoring flaws simply out of empathy for the characters. 

Perhaps I gave this little movie critical leeway simply because I may have been concentrating too hard on not crying. This is due entirely to the acting, as the script is perfectly fine, but painfully cliché in places. Supporting roles by Tudyk, Austin Nichols as an author whose novel Kate is proofreading and Meat Loaf as the motel clerk are brief, but affecting.  

Beautiful Boy works best when the gestures are quiet and the camera hangs back, sometimes even obscured by a doorway or object. Ku gives the characters room, which gives the audience the choice to go with them or let their pain pass over.  Sheen and Bello are both absolutely engaging, so the choice should be clear.

Beautiful Boy could have done without the sappy home video footage that bookends the film, along with the voiceover of Sammy reading a story he wrote for English 101, but the cinematography is absolutely lovely. With warm tones and real spaces, its pleasant understated nature and semi-voyeuristic tone lets us peer in without being seen, but somehow not in as creepy a way as that sounds.

A private study of grief in a world where nothing is private anymore, Beautiful Boy is far from perfect, but the performances and novel choice to focus on those left alive and not the actions of the recently deceased make it a fascinating watch.

Beautiful Boy is now playing at the Ritz at the Bourse, 400 Ramstead Street in Philadelphia.

For more of Megan Carr’s movie reviews and media musings, visit her website at therestiscreamcheese.com.