Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence
Directed by: Jodie Foster
Written by: Kyle Killen
Duration: 1hr 31mins
Rating: 4 out of 5
Wanna rent a movie tonight? Great, what do you fancy? Oh look, how about this offbeat comedy about depression? No? Wait, where you going…?
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| SPOT THE DIFFERENCE...? |
The Beaver was at different times a star vehicle for both Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, and it’s easy to see how it would have been a different beast with either funnyman as the lead. No doubt light-hearted schizophrenic hand puppet antics would have come to the forefront, and soul-crushing desperation would have featured fleetingly, if at all.
Enter Mel Gibson. Now the script – one of the hottest in Hollywood, featured on its infamous Black List of best unproduced screenplays – was fated to take on a fiction-meets-reality status not seen since Mr & Mrs Smith merrily surfed the wave of Brangelina hysteria in 2005. But the furore surrounding Gibson’s 2010 meltdown (racism, domestic abuse, leaked abusive answer machine messages) didn’t do Jodie Foster’s film any good and it suffered from a delayed and ultimately limited release. Which is a real shame, as it’s an interesting oddity that deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience.
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| MEL HAS A RUDE AWAKENING |
The fall-from-grace parallels mean that The Beaver’s story of a man who goes to the brink and claws his way back can’t help but be laced with irony. Though it was filmed back in 2009 before any of the furore, it’s impossible to watch the movie without seeing Mel Gibson the man and not Walter Black the character. But it remains a tortured and committed performance, superb irrespective of the meta element, and it made me bemoan how Mel has spent most of the last decade on the other side of the camera. The amalgamation of star and material brings to mind Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, and if he could get an Oscar nomination for that then, in a just world, Mel’s turn here would have gained the same recognition and subsequent catharsis. As it stands, People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive 1985 still has a long way to crawl to get public acceptance back.
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| A CAREER IN CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT SURELY BECKONS |
Rooting through a dumpster at the end of another day of misery and despair, toy company head Walter finds a beaver hand puppet and blearily takes it with him to a motel, where he plans to finally end it all. His suicide attempt fails, and as he lies prone on the floor, finally at rock bottom, he starts addressing himself through the puppet, a gruff and direct character named ‘the Beaver’, who tells him to get his act together (the fact that the Beaver talks with a thick Aussie accent adds another layer of meaning, since we could easily see this as Mel’s id coming through. It would be interesting to know if this was a script decision, arose from Jodie Foster’s direction or was actually inspiration from Gibson himself). From then on he will only communicate through his felt friend, and the psychological distance allows Walter to reclaim some self-respect, turn his ailing company around, and go some way to reconnecting with his wife (Foster) and sons (Anton Yelchin and Riley Thomas Stewart).
I applaud the film for its sensitive handling of mental illness. This isn’t an Awakenings-style weepie, or the flat out farce that you would have expected from Messers Carrey or Carell. The candid insight into the pain and loneliness of depression and the inherent funniness of the movie’s concept combine to create a measured, thoughtful tone. Walter’s unconventional redemption gives the film a streak of gallows humour that means it never becomes grim or preachy: the failed suicide is played for dark laughs; Walter’s toy company makes its comeback by selling Beaver products; and the simple sight of man and puppet furiously arguing is hilariously absurd.
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| "YOU KNOW WHAT'S CRAZY? WALKING AROUND EVERY DAY MISERABLE IS CRAZY... CRAZY IS PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY" |
One blot is that nearly equal attention is devoted to Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence’s dull teenage subplot. The running time is slight in the first place, and since his reappearance on screen turned out to be such an unexpected treat, we could have done with more Mel for our money. Nevertheless, The Beaver remains an original, funny, and ultimately quite moving experience. ****
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