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The one thing I liked the most about this film was how the director did not delved on why Sammy committed the shooting or why he was suicidal. We see but a few seconds of an enraged Sammy in a video recording explaining to the world why he did it. We see his pain and tears far more often in this movie. And that setup leaves Sammy as a human. He is not demonized. The Sammy we see in this film is the Sammy his parents Kate and Bill remembered. He was the good kid they brought up. He wasn’t the monster the media, their neighbours and many others talk about. For this film to be effective and the pain of the parents to really be the centre of this piece, it was important for director Shawn Ku to evacuate the whole Sammy as a villain bit.
This is not a movie about redemption and heroic soul reconstruction. At the end of the film the characters and the audience will be as confused and as filled with mixed feelings as at the beginning. There is no easy way out of this film. And the pain which sometimes seems resolved will probably come back later to haunt the parents. There is no easy way out for them. What Sammy did will not go away and there will be no strong legacy or act of bravery to help them get out of their mess. Instead we witness the injustice of parents struggling to make a public comment about what their son did, not because they feel the urge to, but because if they don’t they will be accused of being horrible monsters who somehow support the atrocious actions of their son. Asking the parents who are grieving and are as much victims and in pain as the rest of the victims and their close ones, to ignore their own pain when theirs is perhaps the most unbearable of all is unjust.
This is a fictional story. I don’t know to what extent writers Michael Armbruster and Ku research the plight of families of high profile murderers or kids that have committed mass shootings, but Kate and Bill’s reactions and pain seems legitimate and real. Because it is a completely fictional story, no one can be accused of making heroes or glorifying the parents. No one can be accused of parents trying to profit from the acts of their son. This is a fictional story and it is important that this story be told to understand the other side of the victims. This movie is about the parents who many are quick to judge but objectively, cannot be blamed for anything their son did. They really had nothing to do with his shootings. Sure, they got a warning from him and did not pay much attention to them, but how can we blame them for not picking up the vague hints that their son was about to kill 17 people the next day?
The cinematography is odd. Ku favours a handheld camera not perched on a tripod. It’s always moving and jerking, albeit in small burst. Long scenes and close ups where we focus on the characters, hardly moving have this constant jerk because the camera is not on a tripod. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but is the director trying to send a message about the relatively quiet lives of Kate and Bill and how they can never find any grounding or complete peace following Sammy’s shooting?
Beautiful Boy is not a wide release film. You’re lucky if your local alternative theatre shows it. I would catch it and watch it. It’s not exploitative at all or anything like Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine.
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