Film Review: Emotional Journey For Maria Bello, Michael Sheen in ‘Beautiful Boy’

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CHICAGO – The family unit, now in a constant battle with technology, changing morality and a fracturing social structure, comes under psychological siege in the mortally sad but ultimately compelling “Beautiful Boy,” featuring Maria Bello and Michael Sheen.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

The film displays an ultimate tragedy. A couple who is in the process of splitting up must now deal with a son who commits a heinous crime and then kills himself. Bello and Sheen scratch and claw each other like feral cats in their post traumatic circumstance, and work towards solving the difficult equation of directing their human spirit as a divining rod for survival.

Kate (Bello) and Bill (Sheen) are in a dissolving relationship situation, made more fractious with their son Sammy (Kyle Gallner) away at college. The strain in their souls are on display when they share a call from Sammy. He is distantly relating his day at school, while his mother is trying to convince her family to take a togetherness vacation. Bill even cuts off the call on his phone extension early.

This splintering relationship awakens to astounding news. The campus where Sammy goes to school has experienced a mass shooting spree, killing over 20 students. While frantically trying to get any news of their son’s whereabouts in the melee, Kate and Bill eventually find out that it was Sammy who was the shooter, ending the attack by killing himself.

What follows is a blur of devastating reaction and gut wrenching emotions. With the press camped out in their yard, the couple has to escape to the home of Kate’s brother, his wife and son. As they work out the situation while under scrutiny from their relations, the last days of their son’s life is played over and over again in the distraught couple’s minds, and the ways that they react will determine the fate of their commitment to each other.

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Beautiful Boy”

Separate Sorrow: Bill (Michael Sheen) and Kate (Maria Bello) in ‘Beautiful Boy’ Photo credit: Justine Mintz for Anchor Bay Films

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Beautiful Boy”