Summary
A child actor struggles with his relationship with his father and the pressures that fame, money, and a dad who hasn’t figured out his own life yet can bring to a child before he is ready to cope.
The Film
Remember when Shia LaBeouf went to rehab and had to undergo a bunch of therapy. Have you ever wondered what that therapy was for or what it was like?
Then this is the movie for you.
The story is mostly told in flashback with Lucas Hedges (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) playing 22 year old Shia proxy Otis, going through therapy, resisting therapy, writing in journals, and developing a better sense of his childhood and career. These flashbacks star Noah Jupe (“A Quiet Place”) as 12 year old Otis who is acting and living with his father James (Shia LaBeouf, “Peanut Butter Falcon”) in a rundown efficiencies complex across from a ramshackle whore house.
James is pretty much what most people would consider a worst case scenario father. He yells at Otis, squanders his money, lets him smoke, is a convicted felon (sexual crime), hits on movie crew members half his age, and all manner of derelict behavior. Otis is just trying to figure out what it means that his father is a person that he mostly has to take care of, not be taken care of by, and put up with rather than love or be loved by.
Watching this film you get a real sense of what a chaotic life some children lead, even here in America, even some of the most famous people in the world. We get insight into the breakdowns that child actors frequently suffer and a peak into what recovery from those breakdowns looks like.
I wanted to be blown away and transported by this film but I just wasn’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t think this is a good film or even an important and very worthwhile one for many people. I just didn’t connect with it in the way that I think many will.
Despite this, I am extremely happy that this movie was made, made in the way that it was, and will be readily available to most people since it was done by Amazon Studios. I am glad for a couple of reasons. The first is what I mentioned above about people getting to see what is going on in some of these meltdown Hollywood situations behind the scenes and hopefully create a little empathy in those people who watched Britney shave her head, or Michael Jackson name his baby Blanket, and then go on to make jokes about it.
The second is because it is a fantastic example of what I think is the most admirable spirit from which to make true art. Shia LaBeouf wrote this movie and chose to play his dad as a way of working out his own father issues. This movie wasn’t made because it would be a box office smash. It was made because someone had something in their soul that was dying to get out and this was the only way he could do it.
Watching the film you feel like you are watching Shia “do” therapy. He’s trying to see from his father’s perspective and get in touch with a man that he couldn’t understand through his own 12 year old eyes yet. You see him internalizing self-hatred, reckless behavior spilling out of his pores, and desperation to set his son’s life on a better track flying like spittle from his angry mouth. It’s a brilliant performance and vulnerable piece of work.
Playing opposite him Noah Jupe does a great job as young Otis, struggling to understand the harshness and dereliction of his father yet yearning for his affection and guidance, though he can’t trust him. His attempts to assimilate his father into a normal life and take care of him are consistently frustrated by the shame James feels at being dependent on his son. This shame, by contrast, highlights the resentment that Otis feels for not being allowed to be a kid or have a loving family because he already has had to grow up and take responsibility in so many ways.
This dynamic and exploration is the heart of the film and, in my opinion, many great works of art. An artist laying their heart out there and hoping that someone, anyone, connects to, is helped by, feels mirrored by, or understood through the sacrifice one undergoes when they hold their soul in their hand for people to see.
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