Honey Boy review – Shia LaBeouf reckons with himself

Who is Shia LaBeouf? Honey Boy, an unashamed exercise in expelling one’s demons through the power of cinema, sets out to grapple with that very question. LaBeouf, who got his start on Disney’s Even Stevens and made his name with the Transformers franchise before succumbing to a series of controversial, career-killing rants and questionable attempts at being “arty,” is the very definition of a divisive star. For every alcohol-tinged meltdown or pretentious art project, though, there has been an endearing opposite. Like when LaBeouf hired a theatre, screened his entire 29 movie-long filmography over a period of three days, and invited people to watch alongside him. As a conceit, its sincerity won over the naysayers. As a gesture, it confirmed LaBeouf as a man with a desperate desire to understand himself.

In spite of the controversies, then, it’s always been possible to retain a soft spot for LaBeouf, perhaps because he is a genuinely daring and talented performer who has amassed a strange and eclectic body of work outside of mainstream Hollywood, as proven by films like American Honey, and most recently The Peanut Butter Falcon, and also because his self-destructive behaviour seems to stem from something deep-seated and traumatic – a result, possibly, of his child star status?

Honey Boy, directed by documentarian Alma Har’el and making her feature debut, originates from an exercise undertaken by LaBeouf from a spell in rehab back in 2017. The names have been changed, of course, but as things kick off by way of a fast-paced montage, as “Otis” (Lucas Hedges) reaches the end his tether both in his real life and on movie sets and is enrolled into rehab and diagnosed with PTSD, it’s clear that this is Shia’s story. The film unravels as two timelines, with an emphasis on Young Otis (a brilliant Noah Jupe), shacked up in a dingy motel a few miles from the studio alongside his father, “James,” a rodeo clown, former Vietnam vet, and sex offender, who acts as Otis’ guardian – and unpredictable force of belittlement or extreme encouragement, depending on his mood.

It’s here that LaBeouf, in what is the film’s best and most interesting conceit, plays his own father – and what a strange and cathartic experience it must have been to go onto the set each day and reenact your childhood from the opposite viewpoint. We don’t know the real James, of course, so we can’t tell whether LaBeouf’s version is accurate. Is it enough to say that it feels accurate? And maybe that’s all that matters, since LaBeouf is tapping into something raw and real that bypasses any sense of an “impression,” resulting in one of his best – and most honest – performances to date. Somehow what he delivers feels cathartic for us, too; oddly relatable in that strange way that only something incredibly specific can be.

Har’el directs Honey Boy in a dreamy, sunlight-kissed, verité style, an aesthetic that is not unlike the one glimpsed in American Honey, of which the film seems to take at least some of its inspiration. The result is a work that is confessional and apologetic and also, perhaps, a plea for understanding. But given its laser focus on the dynamics of this particular father-son relationship, even at 93 minutes it begins to feel repetitive and eventually slight. “I’m gonna make a movie about you,” Otis tells his father in the film’s most overt meta moment. “About me?” James grins. “You better make me look good.” At the very least, he offers forgiveness in a film that transcends any signs of self-indulgence.

★★★☆☆

By: Tom Barnard

Get Honey Boy showtimes in London.