'Honey Boy' review: The Shia LaBeouf story (SUNDANCE)
Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios
The new film “Honey Boy” makes it crystal clear from its opening moments that, while actor Shia LaBeouf has written a film about his traumatic Hollywood upbringing, this film is deeper and more mature than just another rehashing of a troubled superstar. In the film’s first shot we see a quick montage of some of the most defining moments of LaBeouf’s career. They’re not clearly defined, but film savvy fans will spot his work on the “Transformers” movies as well as his DUI arrest and later stint at rehab. This is how “Honey Boy” opens and it’s a signal that LaBeouf and director Alma Har’el (“Bombay Beach”) aren’t fooling around with their warts and all approach to this story.
It’s this creative partnership between screenwriter LaBeouf and director Har’el that makes “Honey Boy” work as well as it does. Instead of a cradle to the grave story, the narrative focuses on the most intense part of his life: the Hollywood years and, more specifically, the troubled relationship with his father. LaBeouf even goes the extra mile and plays his dad onscreen, leaving two other actors to play the superstar in different stages of his life under the pseudonym Otis. Lucas Hedges (“Manchester By the Sea”) plays Otis as a grown man in rehab and Noah Jupe (“A Quiet Place”) tackles most of the movie as a young Otis forced to grow up fast under unforgiving circumstances with his abusive parent. These scenes between father and son are the beating heart of “Honey Boy” as we see the duo navigating a harsh Hollywood lifestyle during Otis’ tenure on a TV show closely resembling the Disney Channel’s “Even Stevens.” They live out of a cheap motel on the young actor’s earnings; danger and temptation are rarely far behind thanks to dad’s unsteady habits of overdrinking and uncontrollable rage.
Audiences at this year’s Sundance film festival were so moved by “Honey Boy” and Shia LaBeouf’s performance that you could practically feel a warm hug of acceptance and appreciation wrapped around the movie. Even when LaBeouf’s real life outrageous behavior has been on full display in the tabloids, the hunger and excitement for him as an artist has never gone away. He’s always been a risk taker which makes him easy to root for and soul-crushing to see self-destruct. “Honey Boy” is obvious catharsis for the actor hoping to exercise his many demons and that has led to the best performance in Shia LaBeouf’s career with hopefully many more to come.
Rating: B+
Amazon Studios will release “Honey Boy” theatrically in 2019.
