Story of movie Beautiful Boy 2018 Film :
Beautiful Boy is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Felix Van Groeningen, in his English-language feature debut. The screenplay, written by Luke Davies and Van Groeningen, is based on the memoirs Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff and Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff. It stars Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, and Amy Ryan, and deals with the strained relationship between a father and his drug-addicted teenage son.
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| Directed by | Felix Van Groeningen |
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| Screenplay by |
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| Cinematography | Ruben Impens |
| Edited by | Nico Leunen |
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| Distributed by | Amazon Studios |
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Running time | 120 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25 million |
| Box office | $6.8 million |
Beautiful Boy had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 12, 2018, by Amazon Studios. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Carell and Chalamet.
Screenplay
David Sheff discovers his son Nicholas "Nic" is missing and two days later, he reappears in their home. Seeing obvious signs of drug use, David takes Nic to a rehab facility. Progress is made, and Nic requests to be transferred to a halfway house, where there is less security, and free time is given outside of a facility, to which David and Nic's doctors agree. Days later, however, Nic does not return home, and David goes out and finds him in the streets.
Back at the rehab facility, Nic reveals that he has been experimenting with not only marijuana, but other drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and, most recently, crystal meth. Time goes by and Nic has made a full recovery, and seeing his improvements, David sends him off to school to become a writer. Nic's newfound freedom and sobriety start off great, as he becomes a good student and starts a relationship with his girlfriend. However, at his girlfriend's parents' house, he finds a bottle of pills and slowly relapses, to where he purchases crystal meth using money David sent him.
Returning home, David senses that Nic is using again, and Nic leaves of his own accord, feeling claustrophobic from his dad's behaviour. David and Nic finally meet up, and Nic asks his dad for money, so he can go to New York. Knowing the money will most certainly go towards drugs, David declines, and Nic angrily leaves. Time goes by, and David gets a call from a New York hospital saying Nic has overdosed. David flies over there to retrieve him, and after talking to his ex-wife and Nic's mother Vicki, he decides Nic should be sent to live with his mom in Los Angeles.
Nic has a fresh start in Los Angeles living with his mom, attending rehab sessions, and having a supportive sponsor. Couple months sober, Nic drives out to visit David and his family. Seeing Nic interact more with his two younger siblings, David is proud of his son's newfound sobriety, as is his wife Karen. As he departs from their home, Nic suddenly falls into depression, and fears relapsing. Later that night, he drives into San Francisco and runs into Lauren, a drug addict Nic met back in the day, and the two buy crystal meth, and Nic relapses.
After hearing Nic has gone missing once again, David attempts to go look for him, but Karen protests that he has done everything he can for Nic, and he cannot do anything to fix his addiction, which David heartbrokenly accepts. One day Nic and Lauren break into the home, while David and his family are not there, and retrieve some valuable items. The family come home, and the two quickly depart. At first they go undetected, but David's other son Jasper notices Nic, and both David and Karen go out to find them. Karen chases them in their car but stops and lets them drive off.
Lauren becomes unconscious after using, but is revived by Nic and is sent to the hospital. Nic tearfully calls David and asks to come home, which he declines. Despairing, Nic overdoses, but miraculously, he survives. David and Vicki visit him in the hospital, and David and Nic tearfully embrace. Closing titles reveal Nic has been sober for eight years, and it would not have been possible without the love and support from his family and friends.
- Steve Carell as David Sheff
- Timothée Chalamet as Nic Sheff
- Jack Dylan Grazer as 12-year-old Nic Sheff
- Zachary Rifkin as 8-year-old Nic Sheff
- Kue Lawrence as 4 and 6-year-old Nic Sheff
- Maura Tierney as Karen Barbour
- Amy Ryan as Vicki Sheff
- Kaitlyn Dever as Lauren
- Andre Royo as Spencer
- Timothy Hutton as Dr. Brown
- LisaGay Hamilton as Rose
- Amy Forsyth as Diane
- Christian Convery as Jasper Sheff
- Oakley Bull as Daisy Sheff
- Carlee Maciel as Daisy Sheff age 10
- Stefanie Scott as Julia
- Ricky Low as Destiny
In 2008, it was announced that Paramount Pictures and Plan B Entertainment had acquired film rights to the books Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff and Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by his son Nic Sheff. The studio and producers were announcing that they would use the recently published books to frame a picture about drug addiction from the perspective of a young meth addict and the father who finds himself helpless to stop his son's downward spiral. In 2011, it was announced that writer and director Cameron Crowe had written a script based on the books. One year later, TheWrap announced that Crowe was looking to direct the film from his own script after he had wrapped his romantic film Aloha, with New Regency getting involved in this project after Paramount dropped out. In December 2013, it was reported that Mark Wahlberg was circling the project to play the role of the father with Crowe directing.
In 2015, Variety announced that Belgian director Felix Van Groeningen had taken over as director with a new script written by Australian writer Luke Davies. In January 2017, it was revealed that Steve Carell and Will Poulter were attached to star in the project, as the father and son, respectively. Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Brad Pitt were announced as the main producers. In February 2017, it was officially announced that Timothée Chalamet was cast in the film as Nic Sheff, opposite Carell who will play his father. Van Groeningen said that out of more than 200 tapes he received from actors auditioning for the role of Nic, Chalamet immediately stood out: "While we deliberately did not choose a at the time of the auditions, because there is less burden, now of course, it's great." He added, "Nobody had foreseen that he would suddenly become world-famous, but it is completely deserved. If can help bring young people to the cinema, I can only applaud it." In March 2017, Amy Ryan, Maura Tierney, Kaitlyn Dever, Timothy Hutton, and LisaGay Hamilton joined the cast of the film. In April 2017, Andre Royo joined the cast of the film. Prior to filming, Van Groeningen arranged for two weeks of rehearsals with the cast, a common practice in Flemish productions but not in Hollywood.
Filming
Principal photography began on March 27, 2017 and shot through May 2017 in around Los Angeles and San Francisco. Production designer Ethan Tobman used the house from the TV series Big Little Lies for a set, making numerous alterations including to the counters.
The first scenes shot for the film were the most intense, according to Van Groeningen, and involved Chalamet's character being hospitalized for a drug-overdose. Chalamet was instructed to lose weight a couple weeks before the filming of the "hospitalization scenes", and subsequently rested to recover in order to complete the rest of the shoot. Chalamet has stated that there were numerous "doctor visits" and "close calls" during the shoot, saying "Your mind knows you're acting. But when you drop twenty pounds and you are under a rain machine for eight takes in a T-shirt—your body doesn't know you're acting."
The editing of the film took 7 months in total, during which the movie was completely recut multiple times. Initially Nico Leunen, Van Groeningen's long-time collaborator, was not involved in the project; however, Van Groeningen became dissatisfied with the editing process and brought Leunen to Los Angeles to reconstruct the film.
It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2018. It was released in the United States on October 12, 2018 and is coming to UK cinemas in 2019.
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 69% based on 164 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Beautiful Boy sees Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell delivering showcase work that's often powerful enough to make up for the story's muted emotional impact." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
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