An utterly boring drama - 4/10

by The Movie Inspector

An utterly boring drama, Beautiful Boy falls into an endless cycle of repetitive events that deny the story from progressing in any possible way. The only redeeming quality of this lifeless movie is the tremendous performances of Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell.

This movie literally goes nowhere, it lingers around the same idea and constantly goes back and forth in its narrative that it creates a dull atmosphere. Viewers are forced to digest repetitive events despite already understanding their intentions from the very first time they’re projected on screen. ‘Beautiful Boy’ follows a father struggling to bond with his drug addict son over the course of his adolescent years, while facing the numerous consequences of addiction and the toll they take on the whole family. 

This film has no heart, it fails to get audiences invested into its story or characters because of its emotionless tone and hellish pacing. It attempts to be dramatic but comes out empty. It’s sloppy script lacks any sort of creativity or originality. It’s simply unacceptable for a movie to excessively repeat its series of events over and over just for the sake of emphasis on a single theme. The problem is that it doesn’t push its story forward. I believe viewers are more than capable of understanding a teenage boy’s struggle with addiction from the first two times that a similar event was repeated! 

Such a movie requires constant change to show the development of addiction. Above all, the reason behind the boy resorting to drugs in the first place isn’t even touched on. How could the most essential plot point not even be mentioned! It’s a terribly lackluster film that depends on Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell to carry it without allowing the viewer to bond with them. Even their terrific performances couldn’t help make this movie watchable.

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