Drug addiction mixed up with depression can be as dark as the abyss in the ocean. It is deep and could potentially be impossible to overcome. Personally, I have never encountered anyone with this problem but I read and heard stories from the news and they are devastating and surreal simultaneously. It is haunting to know the details behind his sickness, but the vague lead-up to what lead to his sickness and fatal overdose is what is disturbing. People who have that sickness are blind to their problems and reject friends' and families' help because they think that they can handle their situation. You never know who your true friends once they know your problem and can say, "You can always talk to me." or "We are trying to help you." or "We're there for you." It is a blessing once you see that. After experiencing this heartbreaking yet solid movie, I felt like I wanted to help somebody overcome their demons and pay it forward to everyone else.
David Sheff (Steve Carell), a journalist, is seeking help for his son from his first marriage, Nic (Timothee Chalamet), who is a drug addict. David lives with his wife, Karen (Maura Tierney), in San Francisco, with Nic, and their two young kids, Jasper and Daisy. Nic's behavior becomes alarming as he returns home hungover. David enters Nic in a drug rehab program. Nic is struggling as David and Karen say that relapse is part of his recovery. But, David wants to know about his extensive drug habits and how many drugs he has been using.
Nic keeps on struggling as he has a falling out with his family and also his relationship from college. We flash forward to Dr. Brown (Timothy Hutton) saying that crystal meth is extremely addictive and the likelihood of overcoming crystal meth addiction is high. Nic comes back, high, but wanting hundreds of dollars. David denies his request and Nic runs away, irrational and unreasonable.
This is both an emotional journey and a powerful character study even thought the structure of the plot makes it unnecessary with the time jumping back and forth. They could have done it another way by playing it straight through and rely on the balance between both the powerful performances and the movie's structure. Because I criticize the formulaic, unnecessary time-jump structure, it takes away some of the human and touching qualities of the subject and pulls back to predicting what will happen to next to the character and that can be a bit frustrating as I expected a more natural, less contrived story.
But, again, the most compelling element of the film is the performances. Steve Carell continues his streak of grounded characters since The Big Short, whether if it is caring, reliable professional like in that film or a sexist jerk like in last year's Battle of the Sexes. He has created a versatile resume of roles that can persuade people to respect him as one of the more under-the-radar dramatic actors in the industry. Amy Ryan and Maura Tierney do retreat into one-note roles with opposite points of view of how Nic's behavior should be handled. They either argue or just care about Nic. But, the stand-out once again is Timothée Chalamet, who was the rookie MVP last year with his roles from Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird and Hostiles. He has a tremendous rage from being an angelic child that can charm the socks of people to a skeletal, defenseless soul that needs help or else he would be broken forever. His performance in the movie reminds me of both a young James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause and Leonardo DiCaprio from The Basketball Diaries. He channels that struggle, quiet rage and vulnerability into one well-rounded, great performance that deserves all the accolades. I would not be surprised if he gets nominated and wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Director Felix Van Groeningen director a moving portrait of addiction in more pockets than none but it is definitely enough to warrant a recommendation thanks to the wonderful performances from Carell, Ryan, Tierney and especially Chalamet. But, I wished that the film would have been more natural in its storyline instead of a relegating to a formulaic structure that is so noticeable that is almost got me distracted away from the topic of addiction itself and the acting. This movie would definitely get attention for people who experienced with addiction and would be understandably impacted by this material. It is a solid movie with powerful performances but I wished I would have liked it a lot more.
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