Relapse is part of recovery. That's what one doctor in "Beautiful Boy " tells David Sheff (Steve Carell), the distraught father of a teenage son, Nic (Timothee Chalamet), who has been dabbling in alcohol, weed, cocaine, heroin and crystal meth, and has become an addict.
He disappears for nights on end from his father's idyllic home in the woods outside of San Francisco which he shares with a stepmother, Karen (Maura Tierney), and his two very young step-siblings. He steals his little sister's savings ($8). He lies. He hurts everyone around him. He goes to rehab. He seems to be turning over a new leaf. And then he starts the cycle all over again.
"Beautiful Boy" is an honest portrait of how addiction affects families and how it's not something that can be wrapped up and packaged into a neat and tidy narrative. It's ugly and messy, with moments of grace and hope, but mostly despair. The film is based on a pair of memoirs, one by Nic Sheff and one by David Sheff, and directed by Belgian filmmaker Felix Van Groeningen in his English language debut. This may be depicting a family's story in the recent past, but there is hardly a more timely subject matter to explore.
This image released by Amazon Studios shows Maura Tierney, left, and Steve Carell in a scene from "Beautiful Boy." (Francois DuhamelAmazon Studios via AP)
Van Groeningen directs the melded stories in an unconventional and often disorienting way, jumping back and forward in time with abandon and not a lot of establishing context. Some jumps make sense, like David, sitting in a cafe and waiting for his grown son to meet him after a bender, and remembering sitting at that same table years ago with Nic as a much younger child and goofing around trying to speak Klingon to one another. Others are just confusing. Is Nic returning after a semester in college, you wonder? Did he graduate? When, exactly, does he smoke pot with his father? Before or after he confesses to trying meth?
Perhaps disorientation is the point, a commentary on life and jumbled memories, but for the viewer it can be trying at times. The editing choices can make this film seem occasionally like one extended montage or lovely-looking music video. Van Groeningen also tends to favor flashbacks to various stages of Nic's pre-teen childhood as David looks adoringly on his sweet, innocent son. It's all well and good, but are we to be surprised that an addict could have once been a sweet and innocent child?
It is a frustrating diversion mainly because the best parts of "Beautiful Boy" are when Carell and Chalamet are together. I wonder whether there is a version of this movie that exists where the timeline is straight, and it is just laser focused on Nic's ups and downs since he started using drugs. Both actors excel together, especially in gut-wrenching scenes like the aforementioned one in the cafe, where David refuses this time to give Nic any money. You can see in Carell's empathetic eyes that the ultimatum is killing him inside.
Although you can empathize with David's struggles, the film keeps the viewer at a bit of a distance by plopping us down in the middle of the crisis and not really letting us get to know this father and son outside of it. And forget about the other characters: Save for one scene that comes out of nowhere, Tierney, as the stepmother, seems to only be around to look concerned in the background. And Nic's birth mother Vicki (Amy Ryan) gets even less to do, and we never learn why she's so distant in her son's life other than the fact that she lives in Los Angeles. That's not to say it is not beautifully shot, and acted, with compelling and affecting music cues from Neil Young to Radiohead. But a film like this, as authentic and raw as it is, should probably leave audiences in a puddle and not exiting the theater wondering why they're not.
"Beautiful Boy," an Amazon Studios release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "drug content throughout, language, and brief sexual material." Running time: 112 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
MPAA Definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — European leaders urged Iran late Friday to allow its citizens to demonstrate without reprisal after Tehran signaled security forces would crack down on the protesters whom U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to support.
At least 62 people have been killed in the protests that began in late December over Iran’s ailing economy and have morphed into the most significant challenge to the government in years.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands “stained with the blood of Iranians” as his supporters shouted “Death to America!” in footage aired by Iranian state television. State media later referred to the demonstrators as “terrorists,” setting the stage for a violent crackdown as in other protests in recent years.
Protesters are “ruining their own streets ... in order to please the president of the United States,” the 86-year-old Khamenei said to a crowd at his compound in Tehran. “Because he said that he would come to their aid. He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead.”
Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei separately vowed that punishment for protesters “will be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.”
Late Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a joint statement condemning reported deadly violence against the protesters, and urged Iran to allow its citizens to express themselves without fear of reprisal. The Associated Press could not independently confirm local media reports that state forces had opened fire on protesters in Tehran on Friday.
There was no immediate response from Washington, though Trump has repeatedly pledged to strike Iran if protesters are killed, a threat that has taken on greater significance after the U.S. military raid that seized Venezuela's former President Nicolás Maduro.
Despite Iran’s theocracy cutting off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls, short online videos shared by activists purported to show protesters chanting against Iran’s government around bonfires as debris littered the streets in the capital, Tehran, and other areas into Friday morning.
Iranian state media alleged “terrorist agents” of the U.S. and Israel set fires and sparked violence. It also said there were “casualties,” without elaborating.
The full scope of the demonstrations that began Dec. 28 couldn’t be immediately determined due to the communications blackout.
The protests also represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Pahlavi, who called for the protests Thursday night, similarly has called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. Friday.
Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.
So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 62 people while more than 2,300 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
“What turned the tide of the protests was former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for Iranians to take to the streets at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Per social media posts, it became clear that Iranians had delivered and were taking the call seriously to protest in order to oust the Islamic Republic.”
“This is exactly why the internet was shut down: to prevent the world from seeing the protests. Unfortunately, it also likely provided cover for security forces to kill protesters.”
When the clock struck 8 p.m. Thursday, neighborhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Thousands could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out.
On Friday, Pahlavi called on Trump to help the protesters, saying Khamenei “wants to use this blackout to murder these young heroes.”
“You have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word,” he said in a statement. "Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pahlavi’s appeal to Trump.
Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The internet cut also appears to have taken Iran’s state-run and semiofficial news agencies offline. The state TV acknowledgment at 8 a.m. Friday represented the first official word about the demonstrations.
State TV claimed the protests were violent and caused casualties, but did not offer nationwide figures. It said the protests saw “people’s private cars, motorcycles, public places such as the metro, fire trucks and buses set on fire.” State TV later reported that violence overnight killed six people in Hamedan, some 280 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Tehran, and two security force members in Qom, 125 kilometers (75 miles) south of the capital.
The European Union and Germany condemned the violence targeting demonstrators as new protests were reported in Zahedan in Iran's restive southwestern Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran’s theocracy.
It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their rescue.”
In an interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt aired Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge.
Iran has “been told very strongly, even more strongly than I’m speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell,” Trump said.
He demurred when asked if he’d meet with Pahlavi.
“I’m not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that as president,” Trump said. “I think that we should let everybody go out there, and we see who emerges.”
Speaking in an interview with Sean Hannity aired Thursday night on Fox News, Trump went as far as to suggest Khamenei may want to leave Iran.
“He's looking to go someplace,” Trump said. “It's getting very bad.”
Associated Press reporter Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.
In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows a fire as people protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
This frame grab from a video released by Iran state TV shows vehicles burning amid night of mass protests in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Iran state TV via AP)
This frame grab from a video released Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows cars driving past burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Tehran, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)
In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people blocking an intersection during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Thursday Jan. 8, 2026. (UGC via AP)
