“There’s always more to Shia,” said Honey Boy director Alma Har’el in a brief speech to the audience of the iPic Fulton Street theater before the film’s screening began on Tuesday night.
After the screening, the theater held a panel discussion with director Alma Har’el, screenwriter/star Shia LaBeouf, and co-star Byron Bowers. Check out our coverage of that here.
After his promising, and, at times, bizarre, career (#IAMSORRY anyone?) was nearly eclipsed by several intoxicated run-ins with the police, we might not have expected to hear about a new side of LaBeouf. But Honey Boy, the screenplay for which LaBeouf started writing in court-appointed rehab, gives us something else: unprecedented honesty.
The story follows a barely fictionalized version of LaBeouf’s troubled relationship with his father, represented onscreen as Otis and James Lort, respectively. The movie flips between two timelines. In one, he’s a 12-year-old child actor living in a motel with James, an addict and Vietnam war vet with a tenuous relationship with sobriety. In the other, Otis, now a young adult, is where LaBeouf was when he began writing the screenplay.
LaBeouf himself stars as his father opposite his 12-year-old self, portrayed by Noah Jupe. The premise feels almost like another installment in a series of pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-vulnerable performance art pieces. But the end result provides a real-life picture of trauma and reconciliation. Contrary to my expectation, the decision to cast LaBeouf as his own father made the story feel authentic and more importantly, fair.
As we switch between the two timelines, with a judicious, if at times unsubtle use of parallel shots, we come to understand how Otis and James received their emotional baggage. But the film doesn’t focus on “fixing” their relationship or explaining how reconciliation works after decades of conflict. During the scenes of adult Otis in rehab, he does more listening and absorbing than talking about his recovery. But by the end of the movie, we know he’s inching towards peace.
The other great accomplishment of Honey Boy is the painful authenticity of scenes between Otis and James. In one moment, the two are in equilibrium, a child actor focused on improving his craft with the help of a dedicated, rough-around-the-edges coach. But one wrong word, one insecurity-inducing instance, and the tension snaps in like a twig underfoot. And suddenly the demons that are always in the room with James reveal themselves to us.
Noah Jupe stars in HONEY BOY
Courtesy of Amazon Studios
In displaying this, LaBeouf and Har’el don’t pull any punches. They show James Lort in all his unsavoriness, and the (mostly) emotional bruises inflicted on young Otis. But all the while, James never becomes anything less than human. Perhaps that’s because many of us know a real-life James in one form or another. And perhaps because Har’el and LaBeouf refuse to absolve or deny anything between the father and son.
One of the great powers of filmmaking is control over the story. No matter how painful something was, you can covet it, and mold it from a wound into something worthy of applause. There can be a hero, a villain, a cathartic final agreement that closes the door on trauma forever. But Honey Boy doesn’t exploit that power.
Instead of forcing a resolution, or a righteous “canceling” of a flawed father, Har’el and LaBeouf achieve an honesty you rarely see in movie narratives, or even in private diaries. We’re shown what can and must happen after we get to know our trauma, with the empathy and care such stories require. And it’s worthy of applause.
The film, which won the Hollywood Film Award for Breakthrough Screenwriter, and the Sundance Dramatic Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft, opens November 8th at select theaters. Check out the trailer in the meantime: