Honey Boy. MA15+
Four stars
To work through traumatic childhoods stemming from complex relationships with their parents, some people pickle themselves with mind altering substances, some people drive themselves as overachievers, some become a bit too free with their bodies.
If you're American child star turned indie film darling actor Shia LaBeouf, you do all of the above, but then you write that trauma into a screenplay and you make our cinema viewing experience a part of your catharsis.
As a child perfomer, LaBeouf stood out on the screen in family films like Holes, and worked his way to supporting roles in big films - Charlie's Angels Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He led big Hollywood productions including the Transformers films, and then he used his star power to support European or independent productions.
There is a bit of a gap in his resume until he recent reemergence in films like Borg Vs McEnroe, and this film addresses that period.
Until he came of age, the young performer needed his father as chauffeur, chaperone and mentor, and this film unpacks that complex relationship, with documentary director Alma Har'el making a feature-film debut and working from LaBeouf's "semi" (very) autobiographical screenplay.
At two different places in his life, we meet Otis (played as a 12-year-old by Noah Jupe and and a 22-year-old by Lucas Hedges).
The older Otis is a successful actor but is melting down and acting out, and after a bad car accident is given a suspended sentence and booked into a rehab facility. He is such a consummate performer the staff aren't too cynical when they can't extract the genuine remorse and insight from the horseplay and drama coming from Otis. Here, his therapist (Laura San Giacomo) convinces him to document his life story, looking for the source of the trauma behind the self-destruction.
Ten years earlier, Otis and his father James (played by LaBeouf) are living in a motel in a seedy part of Los Angeles. Dad drives Otis to his acting work, rehearses with him, coaches him on what he considers funny.
James had a career in his younger days as a rodeo clown but there isn't too much funny about this volatile figure. James is a veteran, a partially reformed addict who spends time at support meetings. But he is also angry, violent, a wilfully neglectful father when he wants to be, and he is wildly resentful of the son who pays his wage as chaperone.
If this was life for the young LaBeouf, no wonder he has so much to draw on for his mesmerising performances. I only recently saw his independent film The Peanut Butter Falcon at the cinema and felt that he just gets better as he matures.
But this film is hard viewing. Worthy, meaningful and really worth your time, but it's not a laugh or a fun night out. The performances are intense. Playing a version of his own father, LaBeouf builds a thoroughly unlikable man who you nonetheless warm to for baring his own soul and flaws. It is fascinating to watch LaBeouf get into the heart of this "character" and come to some sense of connection.
We've already seen LaBeouf give a version of this angry resentful parent in dance form in the video for Sia's Elastic Heart.
LaBeouf the screenplay writer has a good sense of dialogue, necessary as most of the film takes place between the father and son in and around a single motel room.
Aside from his escape into work and character, the one positive light in young Otis's life in this film comes from another motel denizen in the form of Shy Girl, played by British singer FKA Twigs. Their possible romance and its theoretical sweetness as Otis experiences it is a tainted memory among many in this challenging, beautiful film.
