One of these books was penned by Sheff himself and the other was written by his father, David (Steve Carell) and so the movie is split between those two perspectives, with David's getting slightly more screentime and serving as a quasi-audience-point-of-view character as he learns about and comes to terms with what his son is going through. There's a non-linear format to the way this tale is told as certain events get told out of order and flashbacks to when Nic was a young boy are shown. Such joyful memories of the past differ greatly from present-day circumstances that see David struggling to make the barest amount of communication with his son.
Focusing so much on David is a bold tactic that does lead to the biggest problem of the movie: Nic sometimes struggles to feel like a distinct human being in his own right. Beautiful Boy is a movie about the humanity of people struggling with addiction but by spending so much time on David's perspective, Nic gets the short shrift in terms of screentime and, though almost certainly unintentionally, he frequently becomes more defined by the illness he's suffering from than anything else. Scenes showing his own personal experiences tend to be some of the strongest in Beautiful Boy and I dearly wish there were more of them.
Even if it feels like its own titular boy could use more fleshing out as a character, Beautiful Boy still manages to pack quite a bit of an emotional wallop, much of which comes from the performances. Steve Carell has transitioned nicely from comedies to darker dramas and like his career-best work in Last Flag Flying last year, Carell conveys a lot of subtle fatherly angst in his work as David that just breaks your heart into two. Having so much of this movie be simply about the performances is a risky move that pays off thanks to how much Carell excels in the lead role, particularly in how he's able to have the more recent version of David contrast with the happier younger version of the same character in flashback sequences.
Meanwhile, Timothee Chalamet, in the other crucial role of Nic, may get underserved by some aspects of the writing but he manages to compensate mightily for that foible in the screenplay by bringing loads of humanity to his performance. He's especially good at conveying desperation in his most tortured scenes against Carell's character and the way he portrays the seemingly contradictory behavior of Nic sinking to his lowest point on what should be a gloriously happy day for him (a graduation ceremony) is especially remarkable. Between this and Call Me By Your Name, Chalamet is really impressing me with his subdued yet powerful acting choices, can't wait to see where he goes next in his career.
This is mostly a two-hander show between Carell and Chalamet and the restrained directing from Groeningen that makes sure the viewer's focus is always on the actors reflects that. Well, that's not true, also getting a prominent placement here are a large number of existing songs that play out throughout the film instead of a traditional orchestral score. Some of them feel a touch too obvious of choices in their lyrics but their mostly a solid collection of tunes that help lend the film its own identity, one that's trying to really depict this specific instance of father/son turmoil in a naturalistic manner. Beautiful Boy doesn't succeed in executing this concept as well as it could (the film as a whole feels a little too cold, a touch more humanity could have really helped it out) but it's a solid experience overall that really excels when it comes to the lead performances.
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