Beautiful Boy (2010)

All Critics (57) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (17) | DVD (6)

In Beautiful Boy, the themes are vast but the picture is small, and the ensuing emptiness is what the characters are meant to feel -- not us.

June 17, 2011 Full Review

Rick Groen

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

An excruciating drama about a couple caught in the aftermath of a pivotal moment involving their college-age son.

June 17, 2011 Full Review

Ann Hornaday

Washington Post

Top Critic

At a certain point lofty objectivity is just a refusal to engage, and no raw camera work can disguise it.

June 16, 2011 Full Review

Mick LaSalle

San Francisco Chronicle

Top Critic

Most of "Beautiful Boy" is unrelentingly bleak and depressing, but there are smatterings of understatement and grace.

June 16, 2011 Full Review

Ted Fry

Seattle Times

Top Critic

This feels like a movie that won a high school current-events contest: Take a tragedy, make a movie.

June 16, 2011 Full Review

Wesley Morris

Boston Globe

Top Critic

Ku focuses on the effects the aftermath has on those intimately involved, and they are grim.

June 16, 2011 Full Review

Bill Goodykoontz

Arizona Republic

Top Critic

The parents always know.

October 11, 2011 Full Review

Victoria Alexander

FilmsInReview.com

There are no answers, only more questions, and the film beats you down, which is probably the point and the closest we can ever get to truly empathizing with parents whose children go mad.

June 21, 2011 Full Review

James Kendrick

Q Network Film Desk

It is a mood dampener of the first degree, but it's a rarely told story at a time when this type of tragedy is becoming tragically ordinary.

June 17, 2011 Full Review

Jim Slotek

Jam! Movies

Beautiful Boy remains removed and distant.

June 17, 2011 Full Review

Stephen Schaefer

Boston Herald

It's primarily an actor's showcase, with Bello once again displaying her incredible range as she copes with the waves of grief, denial and rage.

June 17, 2011 Full Review

Norman Wilner

NOW Toronto

'Boy,' for all its exploitation of the sensational, is a tense affair that challenges us with questions we may never have thought to ask.

June 16, 2011 Full Review

Rossiter Drake

San Francisco Examiner

The film's depiction of a married couple in emotional peril rings true rather than maudlin, sustained at a riveting pitch through the consummately raw, sympathetic performances of its two leads.

June 16, 2011 Full Review

Dustin Putman

DustinPutman.com

Unlike the rather basic idea of Rabbit Hole being spun into other areas of forgiveness and catharsis, Ku's film exists in a bubble that just keeps floating.

June 10, 2011 Full Review

Erik Childress

eFilmCritic.com

Successfully contextualizes its tragedy with urgency and emotional rawness without crumbling into maudlin melodrama.

June 10, 2011 Full Review

Wade Major

Boxoffice Magazine

• 1. Sammy: As the boy and the girl ran out from the station wagon the beach was happy. It was happy to have their small footprints upon it, it was happy to have holes dug with plastic shovels, it was even happy to have paper wrappers blowing about after they'd gone. But the beach knew there would no longer be this to look forward to, no more careless play, only lonely snowfalls to mark the beginnings of an endless winter. The beach loved the boy and the girl, though had no way of telling them and it knew this was their last time together. Things would be different from now on, it didn't know if they would be better or worse, but for certain things would change.
  – Submitted by Penelope S (15 months ago)
• 1. Bill: There is no defense for what he did!
  – Submitted by Tanner V (24 months ago)
• 1. Kate: Did we do something? Did we not do something?
  – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)
• 1. Bill: We are deeply sorry for the devastation our son has caused.
  – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)

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