MovieChat Forums > Beautiful Boy (2011) Discussion > Awful

Awful

posted 13 years ago by birdparade
9 replies | jump to latest

All elements of this movie add up to a thin piece of film. I do not believe the way which these parents reacted to their son's death at all. Minus the wife's initial yelling at the cops for supposedly lying to her, this couple seems so disconnected from emotion in a very, very unrealistic way.

I've been close enough to a school shooting that I've heard the gunshots. I was interviewed with reporters and lived right in the thick of the media buzz. It wasn't fun. Even being that close to an event like that is awful. If you're own kid is involved, especially as the shooter, it has to be a million times worse.

Bottom line is, if anyone lost their kid they would fall apart. And hard. I don't blame others for liking this film at all. We all have our own opinions. I just think we're all being force-fed throatfuls of heavy-handed, weightless junk.

[–] dogma66605 13 years ago

I know. Something is really wrong with the way this movie was written. They just weren't sad enough. Maybe it's because I've grown up in a huge Greek family where everyone's been there, through thick and thin, but I'm also really confused as to how little support and comfort they got. Did they SERIOUSLY have no other close relatives? No wonder that little *beep* was so depressed. THAT's all he had to go home to? I know they're supposed to be emotionally distant and dazed people, but I was really disappointed by how they took the news. I know it's a lot to take in, but seriously... I cried more at Titanic than they did after finding out their boy shot himself in the head after assassinating 20 people. I just don't buy it.

[–] Eightythreeyearoldguy 13 years ago

How sad did you want them to be? They were going through an emotional hell. Did you expect a lot of weeping and wailing? Not everybody expresses grief that way.

Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies

[–] wwolf-8 13 years ago

If you're in shock sometimes you even forget to cry. You're just not there.

[–] Pequod88 13 years ago

The weaknesses of the script kept this from being better. Bello and Sheen carried the film, giving performances that kept me interested even as the problems mounted.

While it was smart to not try and "explain" the son becoming a mass-murderer, the son was so little seen as to be cipher. His scant screen time supports a suicide but offers no character development to support his plausibility as a mass-murder.

The mother finding a high school essay in a drawer was meant to offer some hint as to his melancholy, but it didn't really work for me. While the beach scene at the film's opening showed a happy family memory, there were no flashbacks to give us a sense of the son's growing mental distress. We have no glimpse of his life at college.

The "novelist" character didn't work. If Bello works for a publisher we should have had a stronger sense of her career. It was shoe-horned in and didn't add to the sketchy sense of the massive media intrusion that would follow violence on this scale. The inclusion of more television coverage and glimpses of the families affected by the son's rampage would have helped flesh out the reverberations from the son's deeds.

Sheen's return to work was one of the worst scenes in the film. Common sense would tell you that co-workers will be uncomfortable and stunned, unable to know whether or how to interact with you, knowing your son slaughtered 20 people before taking his own life. It would take months for interactions to approach normalcy, and yet Sheen flies off the handle in the midst of day one back at work. It was a very heavy handed scene, especially following the unsuccessful scene with the boss at the diner.

Much of the film came off as the story of distraught parents struggling to come to grips with the suicide of a child. The killing rampage aspect of their son's demise was so poorly developed as be an afterthought to what did work: Bello and Sheen's immense talent, which made this film more engaging than was warranted by the script or direction.

[–] Bruarvatn 13 years ago

I liked that this movie tried to be different but it did not work for me. I did not believe in it and did not find it engaging despite the subject matter. There were some parts that were almost interesting but it just fell short for me.

[–] Merle_Dixon 12 years ago

I wanted to see some bullets flying, people screaming and crying.

Now the movie was just a fairly mediocre drama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

[–] Tracey73 12 years ago

I do not believe the way which these parents reacted to their son's death at all. Minus the wife's initial yelling at the cops for supposedly lying to her, this couple seems so disconnected from emotion in a very, very unrealistic way.

I have to disagree.I think the death of a child is the most devestating things anyone would have to deal with. But add in the fact that your child committed all those murders - I think everyone would deal with this in different ways.

The mother's initial shock and denial IMO was very believable. Many people deal with a loved one's death (esp a sudden death) by denying it. I sometimes wonder if this is the brain's way of somehow "protecting" this person from the awful truth.

The dad's denial of not wanting to deal with this was also very believable. The part where he was yelling about wishing his son was never born was incredible and VERY believable. I can't even imagine the anger at never knowing why and always wondering if there was something you could have done differently (as a parent) that might have been effective at preventing this.

I've been close enough to a school shooting that I've heard the gunshots. I was interviewed with reporters and lived right in the thick of the media buzz. It wasn't fun. Even being that close to an event like that is awful. If you're own kid is involved, especially as the shooter, it has to be a million times worse.

I am so sorry you had to go through something like that. I can't imagine how scary that would be. But I do agree that having a child that was capable of doing this (and never knowing why) would probably be one of the most devestating, painful things to ever go through.

Bottom line is, if anyone lost their kid they would fall apart. And hard.

100% agree! But I also think that there is the initial shock, anger and denial that many people would go through with something this horrible. And I think this is part of what the parents are experiencing.

While one viewer might have saw this as an unemotional attachment, another might have interpreted this as something so emotional and disturbing that initial denial and anger would take over before the grief finally hit them.

All I can say is this movie was damn painful for me to watch ... (BTW this is just my opinion. I always enjoy reading other posts, including your's :))

Some hurt, some love, some shout. I fought the world and I lost that bout. ~ Blue October

[–] birdparade 12 years ago

That has to be the most insightful and positive disagreement post on all of IMDB. May the typical troll behavior on here be changing!?

[–] Tracey73 12 years ago

lol birdparade .. thanks. I try to stay respectful and always remember that everyone has the right to their opinion. Plus, it makes for interesting discussions :)

Some hurt, some love, some shout. I fought the world and I lost that bout. ~ Blue October