Beautiful Boy opens in theaters today.
I’ve never been a parent or a junkie (yet!), but I found a lot that resonated in Beautiful Boy, a low-key film based on a pair of interconnected memoirs from father and son David and Nicolas Sheff.
It’s a narrative that could have easily been filled with blame and recrimination—not to mention a lot of slammed doors, teary shouting, and woozy Velvet Underground songs—but director Felix Van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown) isn’t interested in making something visceral or edgy.