When I grew up I had a friend who introduced me to all kinds of things, including smoking, Jimi Hendrix, hashish, Peter Gabriel's back catalog, LSD, Nirvana (the band, before many had heard of them), Charles Bukowski, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, Southern Comfort, The Doors, and the list goes on and on. He was charming, super smart, and an extremely talented writer. He had a gift for language. He also had a thing for drugs. He like drugs and romanticized them. And my friend was fearless - needles didn't bother him. He liked them. He became a heroin addict. He almost died. Then he got better, got clean. Then cancer killed him at 29.
So when I watched Timothée Chalamet give his stunning performance as Nic Sheff, an arty kid with a gift for language and a taste for the dark side, I couldn't help but think of my friend. I know that guy; that guy is real, that guy is my friend.
I found my eyes wet more than once in the first hour of the film because of Steve Carell. He is also fantastic in this film. He plays David Sheff, Nic's dad. I'm a father with two kids and I know that I would do pretty much anything to help them. So when David is speaking with a counsellor about his son with such urgency and earnest, well it brought me to tears. Beautiful Boy isn't just the story of David and Nic, it's about how drug abuse affects an entire family; we get a good look at David's mother, step mother, and his siblings. It's unflinching, raw, and very human. It's also a beautifully shot film. It's seriously nice to look at despite the tough subject matter. It is one of the best films of 2018 and it would have made my list had I seen it earlier. Catch it when you have a chance.
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