So, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see a movie starring Shia LaBeouf, even if it was getting a lot of critical praise considering LaBeouf wrote the script for this incredibly honest and revealing autobiographical movie, titled Honey Boy after a nickname his father used to use. But, on reflection, it’s probably more fashionable to think so little of LaBeouf because of things he does off-screen and not on. Truth be told, I was actually impressed during the first Transformers movie where he could say the silliest lines without looking the slightest bit ridiculous. I figure that takes some talent.
Anyway, I went to see Honey Boy this past weekend in part because I wasn’t sure how long the local AMC would hold a movie like this.
Honey Boy is the story of Otis Lort (Lucas Hedges as an adult, Noah Jupe as a child). At the age of 22, Otis is an up-and-coming actor who goes to some court-ordered rehab after yet another drunken encounter with law enforcement. While there, he thinks back ten years to his childhood, a time when his acting career was starting and he lived in a cheap motel with his father James (LaBeouf). James is a rough man to live with, though he does offer good advice from his own time as a rodeo clown, and he does seem to care deeply for his son even as he lashes out at the world around him. Over the course of the movie, both child and adult Otis need to come to terms with his relationship with his father.
So, let’s get right to it: this movie is every bit as good and deep as advertised. LaBeouf, here playing a fictionalized version of his own father, doesn’t pull punches or completely demonize the man. He can be tossing off racist jokes one minute and then give his son juggling tips the next. He’s in AA, four years sober, but the main thing about James seems to be he wants people to see him not as the man he was but as the man he is aspiring to be, and that goes especially for young Otis. Feeling disrespected at almost every turn, it isn’t that surprising the man lashes out at all. The movie doesn’t excuse such behavior for a minute, but it does go a long way towards explaining it.
As for Otis at both ages, he’s a young man looking for a strong father figure, not a pushy chaperone who only seems good for giving his son cigarettes and show biz tips. LaBeouf’s script may not let James off the hook, but it doesn’t allow Otis a free pass either. His childhood is a strange one by any measure. He’s not in school since he’s making what looks like Disney Channel caliber TV stuff, and the closest thing he has to a friend is a young woman who is clearly much older than him. Adult Otis is something of an asshole in multiple early scenes, someone who is at best going through the motions while trying to ignore the importance of what he is doing.
Honey Boy is actually something of a sweet movie. Reflecting on the father-son relationship that may not be as toxic as it appears to be at first glance, LeBeouf’s script is a cathartic exercise in past pain that he not only felt he needed to tell, but also needed to tell others.
Grade: A-
0 Comments