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) — Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country's capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Those abroad fear the information blackout will embolden hard-liners within Iran's security services to launch a bloody crackdown, despite warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump he's willing to strike the Islamic Republic to protect peaceful demonstrators.
Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.
The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”
Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran's Punak neighborhood. There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off.
Other footage purportedly showed demonstrators peacefully marching down a street and others honking their car horns on the street.
In Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, some 725 kilometers (450 miles) northeast of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces. Flaming debris and dumpsters could be seen in the street, blocking the road. Mashhad is home to the Imam Reza shrine, the holiest in Shiite Islam, making the protests there carry heavy significance for the country's theocracy.
Protests also appeared to happen in Kerman, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran.
Iranian state television on Sunday morning took a page from demonstrators, having their correspondents appear on streets in several cities to show calm areas with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included. They also showed pro-government demonstrations in Qom and Qazvin.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.
Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar’s state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”
Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, 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 demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
