Beautiful Boy 2018

Do you know how much I love you? If you could take all the words in the language, it still wouldn't describe how much I love you. And if you could gather all those words together, it still wouldn't describe what I feel for you. What I feel for you is everything. I love you more than everything. I really resonate with Steve Carell's David Sheff. I love my daughter so much, and I have the same fear that in the future, the child I nurtured and knew so well might grow into someone I barely recognize. I love how hard he fights back and tries to fix things. I too would do the same for my daughter. That's why it broke me when he came to the realization that there was nothing he could do to save his son. But I'm still glad he stuck by him until the end, no longer with a fight, but with acceptance. I also love Steve Carell's acting. I don't think I've ever seen him this serious and intensely dramatic. It's something like the shock I had with Adam Sandler when I watched him in Uncut Gems (2019) and Hustle (2022). I know these actors mostly for comedy, so seeing this completely different side of them really hits differently. I think we have all experienced some form of that helplessness of not being able to stop thinking about something. The loss of willpower, crawling deeper into the hole, thinking of ways to afford it, not being able to sleep, daydreaming about it, feeling the itch to experience it again, and chasing that addictive dopamine spike it rewards us with. Afterward comes regret, promises that you'll stop, and eventually the itch returns. The same endless cycle of bad behavior begins again. That's also why I resonate with Timothée's character, Nic, who is a drug addict. I may not have a drug abuse problem, but I've had addictions to other things myself. Because of those addictions, I did things I'm not proud of, and it really is hard to recover. The journey of recovery feels like such a long way back. I also understand the part of Nic who wants to explore who he is and feels that the person he has become isn't something his dad is happy about. I too deviated from my parents' vision of myself. But now that I'm a parent myself, I also understand the other side. Parents have this aspired version of their children, not necessarily because they want to control or mold them, but because they genuinely believe that version is what's best for them. This film reminded me that addiction doesn't just kill the brain of the person suffering from it. It slowly destroys the people around them too.