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The Beaver; Official thread
Topic Started: Mar 16 2011, 10:55 AM (3,945 Views)
jodiefan

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http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/05/06/jodie-foster-on-the-%E2%80%98broken%E2%80%99-mel-gibson/
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Artful_Dodger

Thank you. :)
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lala

So far, the best review I've read about The Beaver.
Quote:
 

Movie Review: The Beaver
By Ryan Mazie
May 6, 2011

I believe that the movie The Beaver should come with a warning: “This is not a film for everyone.” Advertised as a quirky comedy in the vein of any light-hearted indie Fox Searchlight release, it is obvious why distributor Summit Entertainment would like to put a smiley face on a project that might have you looking for an anti-depressant by the time it is over.

I will say that The Beaver is a great movie, but one that will understandably have its haters. From the odd plot to the cold-European vibe, The Beaver is one of those films you have to be careful which friends you recommend it to. Even though this is acclaimed actress Jodie Foster’s third directorial feature, what will get the butts in the seats is ironically box office pariah (and rightfully so) Mel Gibson. Garnering more attention than with another leading man, Gibson might attract enough curious looky-loos to chuck their change at The Beaver.

With the opening shot being of a worn-out, paunchy Gibson floating by in a pool, it is immediately clear that this is not going to be a vanity comeback project. With not much more to lose when it comes to his box office clout or general goodwill, Gibson gives one of the most unusual and dynamic performances of his long career. Gibson plays Walter Black, a chemically depressed toy company CEO who has been long withdrawn from his family. His wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) spends her nights besides a computer screen instead of her husband. Eldest son Porter (Anton Yelchin) keeps a list of every trait he and his father share in attempts to break them; his grade-schooler brother Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) is bullied by classmates.

The old saying goes that no family is without their problems, but the Blacks need a team of psychiatrists to get them back on track.

Seeing Walter’s suicide attempts within the first few minutes generate uncomfortable chuckles. All of a sudden there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a beaver hand puppet. Using the puppet (more than proficiently handled and voiced by Gibson in a cockney accent) as a way to communicate while being emotionally distant, The Beaver goes on to dissect if Walter is reconstructing his life or further dismantling it.

Interminably bleak, The Beaver is a brave film for Foster to make. Finding just the right tone of dreariness and hope and with a fairly surrealistic concept, The Beaver is held down in reality, giving it an interesting and relatable perspective.


Written by newcomer Kyle Killen, The Beaver is smart, poignant, and anything but formulaic. However, Foster’s handholding directing style drags down some of the more interesting twists and turns the story has to offer; yelling what is going on instead of whispering, making things fairly easy to predict. Foster does get many things right, though. The coldness of the film’s color palette makes the viewers feel as isolated as the characters (but in a suiting way), the tone is near pitch perfect, and the acting is all around superb. Where Foster fumbles is wavering towards the middle on how much the audience can take, inserting some odd humor to lighten the mood that never really hits the mark. The jokes abruptly end to make way for the final act that confuses surprise and bravery for jumping the tracks.

While I personally do not think highly of Mel Gibson (and Hollywood is holding its breath on The Beaver’s box office, finally being released on limited screens after a long delay. He also has another film, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, that though completed for nearly a year, still has no distributor attached), he delivers a first-rate performance that is the best of the year so far. With a diverse showcase of emotions ranging from suicidal to confident media superstar (turns out that a lot of talk show hosts are fascinated by a man who communicates with a beaver hand puppet), Gibson reminds us why he was an A-lister in the first place, pre-‘00s. Possibly able to fall back on a career of puppeteering if The Beaver tanks, Gibson’s commitment to the two characters he plays (Walter and the Beaver) is remarkable. In lesser hands, the role could be tongue-in-cheek (let’s face it, he is living through a hand puppet), but with Foster’s guidance, this fatal possibility never comes close to fruition.

Jodie Foster, not stretching much from her typical strong mother roles, is the glue that holds this movie together. As the voice of reason, Foster (who has less screen time than expected) unfortunately gets overshadowed as the straight man to Mel’s puppet tricks.

Speaking of screen time, my favorite young Hollywood actor, the ever-eclectic Anton Yelchin, has entirely too much. Paralleling Mel’s qualities almost eerily, Yelchin continually manages to surprise me with his acting abilities. Unfortunately, there is the expression of there being too much of a good thing. While there is a sweet story involving Porter writing the valedictorian’s graduation speech (played finely by Hollywood It-Girl Jennifer Lawrence), Foster devotes too much time to this element. Although it serves a function, with the film running at a brisk 91 minutes, the juggling of the two plotlines seems lopsided.

With a similar release pattern as Summit’s Oscar juggernaut The Hurt Locker, I’d imagine that The Beaver would perform more like another one of their releases, The Ghost Writer. While a fantastic film, the ill-received Roman Polanski directing it (who Jodie Foster is working with currently on Gods of Carnage – she needs to work with a Hollywood sweetheart stat! Where’s Sandra Bullock?) voided the movie from any award and audience consideration. And while Gibson might have dammed The Beaver by his polarizing presence, if audiences give the film a chance, they might be surprised how moving a hand puppet can truly be. Don’t be fooled by the title; The Beaver is anything but wooden.

7 out of 10


http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/column/index.cfm?columnID=13918
Edited by lala, May 7 2011, 03:43 PM.
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ohman
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Artful_Dodger
May 7 2011, 01:25 PM
I think her legs are sexier. :)
the combination of both is the pleasure :love-sigh
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Andreas
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Thank you lala, interesting piece :)
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silverline
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http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/mel-gibson-jodie-foster-the-beaver-disappoints-box-office/

:confused
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Artful_Dodger

:madpissed Once it's on TV though, everybody will be watching it. It's a good movie. Stupid box office!
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Gogo
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silverline
May 7 2011, 10:43 PM
I think it shows that some people really really want to make sure people don't see it because of Mel. Anyone reporter worth their salt can't call a film in limited release a disappointment until it goes wide. :eyesroll
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lala

Andreas
May 7 2011, 07:10 PM
Thank you lala, interesting piece :)
You're welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niwz5p0-tuA
Here you can see some reactions of a few moviegoers. Judging by their responses Jodie did a great job.
I wish I could see it in a theater, but who knows when it'll come to my country if at all.
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jodiefan

silverline
May 7 2011, 10:43 PM
aw fuck that. let's see how it does in europe.
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lala

A very nice and funny review by another puppet.

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/05/08/050811-news-beaver-puppet-review-video-page/
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clarice
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lala
May 8 2011, 03:10 PM
Aha, that was cute :D
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celluloidkid

Gogo
May 8 2011, 12:28 AM
silverline
May 7 2011, 10:43 PM
I think it shows that some people really really want to make sure people don't see it because of Mel. Anyone reporter worth their salt can't call a film in limited release a disappointment until it goes wide. :eyesroll
Well that's not exactly right. The per theater average is pretty low. When it's that low in the big markets, the distributor doesn't have much reason to want to spend more money to market it or expand to smaller markets because with those numbers they are all but guaranteed to lose money if they spend more. Unfortunately for all involved it was pretty much DOA. No doubt they were not able to overcome the Mel factor. There's no doubt, Mel's pretty much done as far as mainstream studios are concerned, and even though we should feel bad for Jodie and the rest of the cast, they'll all be fine down the road.
Edited by celluloidkid, May 9 2011, 06:16 PM.
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Artful_Dodger

:(
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Gogo
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celluloidkid
May 9 2011, 06:12 PM
Gogo
May 8 2011, 12:28 AM
silverline
May 7 2011, 10:43 PM
I think it shows that some people really really want to make sure people don't see it because of Mel. Anyone reporter worth their salt can't call a film in limited release a disappointment until it goes wide. :eyesroll
Well that's not exactly right. The per theater average is pretty low. When it's that low in the big markets, the distributor doesn't have much reason to want to spend more money to market it or expand to smaller markets because with those numbers they are all but guaranteed to lose money if they spend more. Unfortunately for all involved it was pretty much DOA. No doubt they were not able to overcome the Mel factor. There's no doubt, Mel's pretty much done as far as mainstream studios are concerned, and even though we should feel bad for Jodie and the rest of the cast, they'll all be fine down the road.
As I read somewhere else, and I agree, you have to take into consideration where it would have been helped by Mel fans and Mel fans are not in the cities they did releases at. His American fans are more likely in the middle of the country and not in the major cities.
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celluloidkid

Gogo
May 9 2011, 07:39 PM
celluloidkid
May 9 2011, 06:12 PM
Gogo
May 8 2011, 12:28 AM
silverline
May 7 2011, 10:43 PM
I think it shows that some people really really want to make sure people don't see it because of Mel. Anyone reporter worth their salt can't call a film in limited release a disappointment until it goes wide. :eyesroll
Well that's not exactly right. The per theater average is pretty low. When it's that low in the big markets, the distributor doesn't have much reason to want to spend more money to market it or expand to smaller markets because with those numbers they are all but guaranteed to lose money if they spend more. Unfortunately for all involved it was pretty much DOA. No doubt they were not able to overcome the Mel factor. There's no doubt, Mel's pretty much done as far as mainstream studios are concerned, and even though we should feel bad for Jodie and the rest of the cast, they'll all be fine down the road.
As I read somewhere else, and I agree, you have to take into consideration where it would have been helped by Mel fans and Mel fans are not in the cities they did releases at. His American fans are more likely in the middle of the country and not in the major cities.
Maybe you're right, but who really knows. Even Mel's last movie Edge of Darkness (which I'd argue is the type of movie Mel's fans like) did not do well considering the big budget and huge marketing costs. And to top it off, that was years after his arrest and before those tapes were released. I think in hindsight everyone can now see that once those tapes were leaked it was over.
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Gogo
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celluloidkid
May 9 2011, 08:16 PM
Gogo
May 9 2011, 07:39 PM
celluloidkid
May 9 2011, 06:12 PM
Gogo
May 8 2011, 12:28 AM
silverline
May 7 2011, 10:43 PM
I think it shows that some people really really want to make sure people don't see it because of Mel. Anyone reporter worth their salt can't call a film in limited release a disappointment until it goes wide. :eyesroll
Well that's not exactly right. The per theater average is pretty low. When it's that low in the big markets, the distributor doesn't have much reason to want to spend more money to market it or expand to smaller markets because with those numbers they are all but guaranteed to lose money if they spend more. Unfortunately for all involved it was pretty much DOA. No doubt they were not able to overcome the Mel factor. There's no doubt, Mel's pretty much done as far as mainstream studios are concerned, and even though we should feel bad for Jodie and the rest of the cast, they'll all be fine down the road.
As I read somewhere else, and I agree, you have to take into consideration where it would have been helped by Mel fans and Mel fans are not in the cities they did releases at. His American fans are more likely in the middle of the country and not in the major cities.
Maybe you're right, but who really knows. Even Mel's last movie Edge of Darkness (which I'd argue is the type of movie Mel's fans like) did not do well considering the big budget and huge marketing costs. And to top it off, that was years after his arrest and before those tapes were released. I think in hindsight everyone can now see that once those tapes were leaked it was over.
True about Edge of Darkness, although I didn't really check anything regarding that films, so I have no idea.

But I did watch it on DVD! :freak
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clarice
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Jodie Foster: interview outtakes
Posted in Out & About blog by Novid Parsi on May 9, 2011 at 4:51pm

Toward the end of my recent chat with Jodie Foster—after she noted the etymology of gypped—we had an interesting exchange that doesn't appear in our published Q&A with the director and star of The Beaver:

Like your character Meredith, you have two boys.

Well, I didn’t write the script.

But you were drawn to it.

I’m always drawn to it, and I will forever be drawn to little boys, for sure. Panic Room had a girl, but she kinda looked like a boy. [Laughs] I make personal movies, and I put my life in there.

About being in this business for 45 years, you said, “There’s no way you can do that and not be as nutty as a fruitcake.”

[Laughs] That’s true, that’s true.

Why is that true? Why this business in particular?

Well, it could’ve been another business. I mean, I could’ve been an ambassador’s child growing up in some rarefied way, and that would’ve made me crazy, too. This particular way of growing up is not quote-unquote the normal way to grow up, and it has really big demands psychologically, but I don’t think it’s impossible to be a well-adjusted person, and I think I’m a pretty well-adjusted person. I have my kookiness, like we all do, and neurotic points and things that I’ve had to overcome. And you know, maybe it’s a good thing to be given something that requires you to sink or swim so much. If you grow up in middle America in a perfectly fine house with perfectly fine two parents and a dog, maybe you aren’t challenged as much as a young person to find yourself and to hold so feverishly to an identity that means that you stand for something. I don’t think that the best comes of being sheltered from experience.

http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/film/14754537/jodie-foster-interview-outtakes
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Artful_Dodger

Thanks, Clarice. :)
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clarice
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I posted the link on the tv appearances thread but thought I'd post it here too! Here's the video of the CTV.ca Beaver interview: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/top-picks/the-beaver/#clip463472
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jodiefan

here's another video, for 7 news (apology if it was already posted)

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/entertainment/12004242745546/jodie-foster-talks-about-mel-gibson-her-new-film/

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Artful_Dodger

Thank you, Clarice, and thank you, Jodiefan. :) I needed to see that. Hadn't before.
Edited by Artful_Dodger, May 11 2011, 03:55 PM.
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jodiefan

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/movies/joe-williams/article_d4d864a4-7d17-11e0-a471-0019bb30f31a.html

A few minutes with Jodie Foster

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.


No problem. I like talking about my work. It's not like I'm going to talk to my friends about it.

But this has to be a particularly tricky movie to talk about.

I think this is probably the hardest movie I've had to publicize. It does have an odd tone, it doesn't resemble any other movie. It isn't for everybody. It's a fable, but it also asks you to feel some really hard feelings. It is not a comedy. There is lightness and wit to it, and the beaver puppet sets that tone, but little by little as this survival tool becomes more destructive, than the reality of his mental illness and its effect on his family becomes stronger and more dramatic. I know that it's not for everybody, and it's important to prepare them.

At one time, Steve Carrell and director Jay Roach were interested in this script, and I assume they would have taken it in a comedic direction. But in your version, as soon I heard that growling voice of the puppet, I realized it wasn't a comedy.

Mel didn't see the beaver as cuddly or having a high little squeaky voice, and I'm glad. The voice he developed is everything that the Walter character is not—working class, English, willing to claw his way to the top. it's aq Michael Caine voice. But whenever Mel tried to make it funny, I stopped him. So if anybody is responsible for it not being a comedy, I'm the culprit.

Did you have a meeting with the production designer where you sat around a table full of puppets before you picked one.

Absolutely. We tried everything from super-realistic puppets to sock puppets.

Were you always intending to act in the film?

No, my interest in this project was as a director, not an actor. But as I was looking for someone to play the wife, who was the appropriate age, who you would believe had known Mel for years, I realized it was me. Fortunately, I knew Mel would be receptive to me acting and directing at the same time, because he has also acted and directed at the same time.

It's been 15 years since you directed your previous movie, "Home for the Holidays." Is it still as tough as ever for women to get jobs behind the camera?

It's crazy that there aren't more women directors, especially in mainstream movies. There are more women directors in independent film, and there are many, many, many more women directors in Europe. I don't know why it's that way in the United States. Maybe unconsciously the studio executives still think it's a big risk to put a woman in a position of responsibility.

It's a little easier for me to get directing jobs because I have a track record and have worked on 55 movies with a lot of people, so they know that I know how to make movies. But I make very personal movies that are hard to get off the ground. Even if I was offered more mainstream, generic movies, it's just not what I'm interested in.

“The Beaver" is definitely not a mainstream comedy.

Did anyone ever suggest that you shoud change the title to something like "The Woodchuck"?

When my friends asked me if I was really going to call this movie “The Beaver,” I said absolutely. I like the irreverence of it and I like seeing people's faces when they say it. It's a challenging movie, and it requires an audience that's up for the challenge.
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Gogo
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Quote:
 
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.


No problem. I like talking about my work. It's not like I'm going to talk to my friends about it.


:lol
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Artful_Dodger

Thanks, jodiefan. :)
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frenchy_33

I hope the movie does well in Europe! In France what I can tell you at the moment is the critics are very good. To give an example the ones in the two main cinema magazines (Première & Ciné Live) gave it respectively 3 out of 4 stars and 4 out of 5 stars. They were saying they were happy the movie was finally here, that Mel Gibson was fantastic and Jodie was at her best. If the Cannes critics are good too I think it will encourage people to go and see it!
ps: Jodie will be on tv tonight on "7 à Huit" and on "Le Grand Journal" on the last day of Cannes next week or so I heard. I will post the videos for you guys when I find them. Have a nice weekend!
:greet
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TitaniumX

frenchy_33
May 14 2011, 02:09 PM
I hope the movie does well in Europe! In France what I can tell you at the moment is the critics are very good. To give an example the ones in the two main cinema magazines (Première & Ciné Live) gave it respectively 3 out of 4 stars and 4 out of 5 stars. They were saying they were happy the movie was finally here, that Mel Gibson was fantastic and Jodie was at her best. If the Cannes critics are good too I think it will encourage people to go and see it!
ps: Jodie will be on tv tonight on "7 à Huit" and on "Le Grand Journal" on the last day of Cannes next week or so I heard. I will post the videos for you guys when I find them. Have a nice weekend!
:greet
Great news I hope they kill it at Cannes.
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Artful_Dodger

:hughappy Thank you, frenchy_33.
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Andreas
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Just a picture:

Posted Image
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

Caption: Jodie Foster, photographed here at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel, directs and stars with Mel Gibson in the new film The Beaver. Says Foster: "It's the movie I really wanted to make. I was moved by a movie that talked about so many incredibly deep things, and things that touched me about family and sadness and loneliness. I don't think I would change anything."
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celluloidkid

I thought you all might enjoy this review --

It's from moviecietynews.com, the reviewer David Poland is one of those very vocal and prominent bloggers. He's very knowledgeable about film and the movie industry.

Review: The Beaver (Spoilers)

I don’t really know how to discuss The Beaver without getting into spoilers. I could offer the surface analysis of the film, but it’s not fair to all the things the film is.

So what are those things?

First, it’s a serious film about depression. It’s not a comedy. It’s not a charming reverie on depression, as is Lars & The Real Girl, which uses a very similar idea. And if you can’t get past the beaver itself, you can’t really take this journey.

Second, it’s a film about how families deal with depression. You have the mother, who is trying everything she can think of to support both her husband and her children through the husband’s depression… while also dealing with the guilt of knowing that she is giving more to the adult in her immediate world than she is to the children, who really need her more in a normal situation.

Third, it’s a satire about today’s culture. I found myself thinking more about Charlie Sheen, who has paraded his illness around, bouyed by the idea that people had accepted it, than Mel Gibson when watching the second act of this film. Success makes everyone forget/look away from the sometimes ugly road to that success.

While it is true that the thing that Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian are most famous for is performing sex acts on “leaked” videos, we don’t linger in that reality every time we engage them. However mocking of them we might be, “I’ve seen that famous person get hit in the face with a penis” is not the central conversation every time they show up on our TV screen. Same with Roman Polanski, for that matter. My tendency to point out that he is a “child anal rapist” when he comes up in conversation seems to disturb people. And it can’t be because he isn’t one. Everyone is agreed that he is, even if you want to requalify his sex act on a quaaluded 14 year old as something other than rape. But to think that this is what defines him is too uncomfortable to deal with every time his name comes up… for most people.

In his “rotten” review of the film, Roger Ebert questions whether Matt Lauer would really do an interview with a puppet. But he doesn’t. That part of the movie reminded me completely of Tom Cruise. I was waiting for Mel Gibson to jump on someone’s couch! Lauer confronts Gibson’s character, much as he did Tom Cruise. He doesn’t address the puppet. And The Beaver makes its impassioned case. Matt Lauer takes mental illness seriously in the scene, but is beaten by the puppet, as the public prefers to live the fantasy for that moment.

Equally important, when Gibson does physical damage to himself to remove The Beaver from his life (see: Fight Club), the news of this has immediate results on his product line. The public’s thrill about the freak show of a grown man hiding behind The Beaver ends just as abruptly as it began when it gets real. We are complicit.

Getting back to the central character, Gibson’s performance would earn most actors an Oscar nomination. It is as subtle and nuanced and explosive a performance as we are likely to see this year. And the fact that he is in hiding, aside from that ridiculous interview that ran on Deadline, is a real shame… for him and everyone else involved with the film. This actor understands depression and he walks the line between protecting himself/his character and wanting to be understood… wanting to understand… brilliantly.

I do come into the film with baggage. I have a profoundly depressed parent, who has been that way since before my birth. I know what both of the sons in this story are going through because I went through it myself, at both ages. Our journeys were not the same. I was never as self-loathing as the older son, played in another tremendous performance by Anton Yelchin, and I was never given any of the hope that the younger son takes and has fulfilled on some level by The Beaver. I guess, as an adult, I have seen the story through Jodie Foster’s character’s eyes as well. At some point, I became conscious enough to see that element of the story reflected in my parents’ relationship.

My mother never found her Beaver or her Real Doll or her Tyler Durden. I guess that the happy fantasy of these films, for those of us who have lived with loved ones who have gone through this level of depression, is that, somehow, the person buried underneath it will find enough strength to unbury themselves. And if they need a hand puppet or a doll or a fight to do it, great. That would be so much better than loving someone who can never reach through the glass they live behind.

One of the things that is brilliant about the film and its screenplay by Kyle Killen is how the rest of it is layered into the main story. This is a really important movie for Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence, who gets to play a real girl for the first time in a significant turn in a major film. I’m sure some people were put off by the coincidence of a teen in a family with a secret and a girl from a family with a secret ending up in some kind of relationship. But like alcoholics and other “broken” people with a weight that drives their lives, these people find each other, not consciously, but inevitably. And the dance between these two teens is elegant and pitch perfect.

On his side of it, all he wants to do is to scream his truth as loud as he can… so he assumes that she wants the same thing. She doesn’t.. at least not that she knows. She has built all the devices in her life to present a perfect public face while hanging onto her pain in private. He has a ton of devices too, but they don’t wear as well on him, in part, I think, because he is still dealing with a living, breathing source of his pain and shame. Their relationship in this film is Diablo Cody with a philosophy PhD.

One of those great moments in the film that is easily overlooked, in part because Jodie Foster chooses not to hit us over the head with it, but also because there is so much going in in these lives, is when Lawrence’s “Norah” goes back to the scene of the crime and paints the wall with the emotional graffiti that she was meant to release… and then let’s Yelchin’s “Porter” know that she didn’t break the law… she canvassed the side of the building she painted with paper, which he could remove and take with him. She both changed and didn’t… she used her nimble mind, always finding a way to survive, to change the problem slightly, so she could do the right thing for her AND in the eyes of the law AND to make a gift of it for the person who pushed her to engage. It is the Kobayashi Maru of mental health. And there are small moments like that all over the film.

It is interesting to me that Roger Ebert didn’t like the film, as he was another person I thought of a lot while watching the movie. I am not an intimate of the man, but I know him a bit. And when he was pulled into his life-challenging situation, I have no idea how he felt or behaved in the midst of it. But I do know that when he stabilized, he did what Walter Black talks about in the film. He stopped. And he rebuilt. Roger being Roger, he didn’t abandon his loyalties. (When he is really with you, there is no more fierce a friend.) But it felt, from my side of the world, almost like he put his metaphoric arm to the sawblade and cut off the past so he could move into the future. And like Walter Black, he had a lot to bring with him. And now, he is Roger Ebert 2.0, who does not speak, but says more than he ever has to the public. He is a man who does not eat, but writes a cook book. He is less self-protective and more anxious to mix it up than he ever was before in his professional life.

It’s hard to know where Roger would be right now if he wasn’t forced to change his entire life… if Gene were still here and Roger could still speak… if Disney hadn’t pushed him hard enough to make him walk away with his thumbs. Would his life still be as much as it is now about nurturing others? Because that is what the TV show is, especially in all the guest segments. His love for his Far-Flung Correspondents is profound. Roger has become the most generous film critic in the world, by far. And while it’s true that no one else is quite in his position to create opportunity for others, there are still not many who would use that effort for others and not primarily in selfish pursuits. This is not to say that any man is capable of being without selfishness. And as his journey continues, he seems to look back less and less. His legacy stands… but his future is what matters now.

Roger, who was already fascinated and thrilled by the expanded world created by the internet before he got sick, truly rose from the ashes of a near-death experience to begin again. The old Roger would never have done that Esquire story the way Roger 2.0 did. But 2.0 did it and it has redefined the man, much as it crystallized his past.

So if you think The Beaver being so heavy and so pained before it finds salvation in release, and that this is artificial, you are countered by real life… as close as a thumb away.

But man, did I ever digress…

Lots has been made about The Beaver himself. What I haven’t seen written is what, in my eyes, becomes quite clear in third act. The Beaver is Walter Black/Gibson’s father, voice and all.

It is one of the odd things about the film that we really don’t get into why Walter is so deeply depressed. I think it is one of the things that throws people off about the film, even if they can’t quite figure out why they are so unable to settle into the story. But in that last part of the movie, the voice is unmistakably Walter’s unaccepting, unforgiving, unrelenting parent, who when lost, left Walter behind, unprepared, in function or emotion, to step into his shoes.

The argument that Walter has with The Beaver before they part ways seemed like it could have been lifted word for word from Fight Club, as Tyler Durden/Pitt warns Tyler Durden/Norton that the meek can’t live without the mighty. After their journey together, Norton’s character seeks the middle. Tyler Durden/Pitt is the man that Tyler Durden/Norton thinks he should be, but is so anesthetized by the culture that he can only change in a schizo panic. Walter Black has been, it seems, destroyed by his father. He does not believe he can succeed because he has been told that he is just an appendage… and so, becomes, in his depression, nothing other than that appendage. Ironically, The Beaver is his father as an appendage… and must be severed before Walter can take control of his life again, though it won’t be easy.

Frustratingly, this swings the focus back on Mr. Gibson’s real life and his domineering father. Gibson clearly has had the bravado to have great success in his career… but oh, that appendage… the anger, pain, and guilt of wanting to honor your father and also move past your father… no excuse for bad behavior, but an explanation, perhaps.

But I would rather stick to the movie and swing back to the Wizard of Oz metaphor… which is so much easier for everyone to swallow. Dorothy wants to be somewhere over the rainbow… but she always had the power… and there’s no place like home. Walter is Dorothy. The Beaver is The Wizard.

Of course, the child in the family sees both The Beaver and his father as an entity and doesn’t flinch. Movie cliche or the truth? Who is indicted by tossing it away cheaply? Not the movie. Us. Every person in this film has a real stake in the story. Of course, other choices could have been made, but would it have made the film better or just different… just easier for the person who wants it to change?

How much is going on, all at once, as Jennifer Lawrence’s character realizes what Yelchin’s character is really dealing with in his life? In just moments of on-screen time, she has to experience what someone she loves has been hiding, what her civilian reaction might be, how his truth reflects on her personal fears and what she’s been hiding, and what she wants to come next… and we get to see her process all of that, it felt like, 2 or 3 times in a virtual instant. Or we can just reduce it to “teen cliche’.”

The Beaver is the best American release I have seen this year… easily.

It frustrates me enormously to read reviews that suggest this film is too formulaic or simplistic. It is right there on the top of the list of films that generate great myopia in this country because they are in English and the players are too familiar. If this film was in French, it would be getting the best reviews of the year… and no distribution int the US… just a remake deal that would never get made.

This is not a perfect film. And I do know too much for my own good about the subject. But it is the kind of challenging piece that, as both of Foster’s other films have done, engaged the rules of movie format and broken them to some rather profound and even subversive ends. And maybe that is why she is so wildly underappreciated as a director. She’s not pretentious enough for the critics or accessible enough for audiences.

I’m not holding my breath for a Gibson nomination for Best Actor this winter. But it would be a real shame if Kyle Killen’s screenplay was not well into the running for awards at year’s end. I think this is one that will linger and eventually find the audience and respect it deserves.

http://moviecitynews.com/2011/05/review-the-beaver-spoilers/
Edited by celluloidkid, May 16 2011, 09:14 PM.
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