Drug addiction, as well as addiction in general, is, like many epidemics that affect actual human beings, something that crops up in American cinema frequently as just a cheap ploy to drum up shock value drama. The people actually suffering from the illness of addiction don't get their plight or just their own separate personalities humanized. Writer/director Felix Van Groeningen seeks to rectify this with his new movie (which marks his first foray into English-language American cinema)
Beautiful Boy, which is based on two separate non-fiction books chronicling the life of Nic Sheff (here portrayed by Timothee Chalamet) who has struggled with his addiction to numerous different kinds of substances for years.
