Beautiful Boy

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Faiz D It could have been great, but something was missing. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 05/13/25 Full Review Mitch K Was effective at casting emotional trauma and relationship awkwardness. One glaring omission was no mention of how or where he got the fire arms. Not a word. Almost like the NRA was a sponsor. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 05/04/25 Full Review Shannon F Heartbreaking. Great cast. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/16/24 Full Review Audience Member What an emotional roller coaster these two actors take you on. A Very tough watch but beautifully and believably acted. May all who read this not have to live through this from any angle or perspective. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/02/24 Full Review Audience Member Spoilers: Thematically vast but like a rock skipping along the surface of the lake of these themes. Is it a critique of a gun-riddled society, where mass murders are the norm, not the exception? Like "Ordinary People," it is a tale of economically upscale people who lose a son and then watch the family disintegrate. But it's worse, as it is also about youth suicide, which Ordinary People had, but this sick college kid took 17 people with him on the campus. So Maria and Michael had the double whammy of dealing with a son dead of suicide, but also of a mass murdering son. Bello is a champ, not a false note here. Sheen is usually good, but seemed stilted somehow and trying to show us how a good actor does it, as the Brit also had some trouble with the American accent. The ravages of mass murder on not just the dead and wounded but on the families of the killer is a theme, as Its ripples just keep adding up. Were the parents too uninvolved due to the economic mandates of their jobs to have the beautiful suburban home with the beautiful lawn and subterranean sprinkler system? A social critique of home life being chilly as the big energy goes toward success in a capitalist world? It is no wonder the marriage cracks, as they blame one another for their son's mental meltdown and violent destruction -- you were too absent physically and emotionally, no, you were too demanding. The TV-hatemongers and hounding press want grist for their mills at the expense of getting the story wrong, as a client, a boss, friends show they're foes as well. The couple seem to want to move on as normal, but are so irreparably wounded, they're back in each other's arms, feeling no place else to be, as neither wants to do it alone. The break of Sheen at the end is so deep, we don't know if he is neurotic or now actually psychotic. The only hopeful note is that they are together at the end, she mouthing to herself we will get no burden too big to lift, he too distraught to want anything but for her to hold and sleep with him. Nothing gets too much attention, so we are left with questions. So it may be just a journalistic style account of how we survive or don't in our success-oriented capitalist society, our insane culture of hundreds of millions of guns used for repetitive mass murders, our need for more love, attention, affection in families (see 1997's "Ice Storm"). It really answers none of those, nor tries. How do you rebound from a dead, mass-murdering only child? Maybe you don't. Reminds of 2011's "We Need to Talk About Kevin" with mom Tilda Swinton and mass-murdering high-schooler Ezra Miller. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member I agree with Roger Ebert that this one was well-executed but it gets trapped in its own premise. Any emotional relief or silver lining is almost unthinkable just due to the circumstances of the story itself, and so we walk away not taking much away other than some empathy for the almost unendurable plight of the main characters. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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