'Beautiful Boy' review: Addiction is a family disease
Directed by Felix van Groeningen, 'Beautiful Boy' finds Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet trying to map the thorny territory of unconditional love and addiction
By Ryan Aliapoulios
Of Alcoholics Anonymous clichés, David Foster Wallace wrote that the vapider the cliché, the sharper the canines of the real truth it conceals. In that sense, it’s fitting that 'Beautiful Boy', directed by Felix van Groeningen, is a movie full of AA clichés. Still, your susceptibility to them may depend on your familiarity with the material.
The movie is based on addiction memoirs by father and son authors David and Nic Sheff, played by Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet, respectively. Among other addiction-tinged tales, David and Nic are responsible for writing 'Beautiful Boy' and 'Tweak', both best-selling books describing the shared experience of dealing with methamphetamine addiction from opposite perspectives.
