BY JULIET PEREZ
Staff Writer
The movie “Beautiful Boy” directed by Felix van Groeningen, was released in 2018 and tells the story of a boy named Nic Sheff who is addicted to drugs. The movie shows a series of events in which Nic’s dad, David Sheff is trying to help his son get help and become better. The movie is based on a true story and the books written by Nic Sheff. Although a lot of people argue that the movie was “playing it safe” and didn’t dig deeper into the story, I still really love this movie and was extremely emotional through the whole thing, I really don’t think I’ve ever cried so much for a movie and it really is eye-opening to how hard it is to see someone you love become consumed by addiction. When I had heard about this movie for the first time and seen edits of it, I was under the impression that the movie was just about a broken relationship between a father and a son. I was surprised to see that it is extremely more than that. It was also really interesting to see both Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet portray these characters as I have never seen them do such emotionally heavy roles before.
A review that I am often seeing about this movie is complaints surrounding the editing of the film, a lot of people seem to feel as if the editing makes the movie feel “rushed” and hard to follow. I, however, really thought that the editing completely added to the emotional element of the movie. You see so many flashbacks of young Nic and David together, and it shows the audience just how much the drugs messed Nic up. It completely made me cry more to see David’s distress every time he was in a moment that reminded him of young Nic. In one scene it shows David singing the song “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon, to young Nic and it completely destroyed me.
It really frustrated me to see Nic relapse so many times, especially after being sober, but that’s also really the point? Addiction is a frustrating cycle, and for some people, it never ends. To see how hard everyone around him was trying and to see him also trying to get help and promising to get better was super sad to me because it just shows how badly addicts don’t actually want to be addicted. I really recommend this film to anyone because it really has stuck with me since I first watched it.