View Single Post
Old 02-09-2018, 08:03 PM   #9363
Seanny One Ball
World Class References
 
Seanny One Ball's Avatar
 
Posts: 30,559
Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)Seanny One Ball makes a lot of good posts (200,000+)
The Beaver - 3.5/4 stars

I gained another level of respect for Jody Foster after seeing this. More as a director than an actress - her performance was excellent however I was already a pretty big fan so it was great to see that this overlooked piece of pub trivia was actually something wonderful.

I think if anybody else had done this it would have just been bizarre but given the parallels with Mel Gibson's publicly played out fall from grace it seems to work very effectively off the back of that connection. I know it bombed but the story is a lot more believable than it looks from the outside. Once you open the door you are in the home of a desperately ill man who is both acutely aware that something is wrong and yet who cannot do anything to keep himself from self destruction besides talk through a Beaver puppet.
It sounds ridiculous and immediately looks so but it instantly becomes clear that you are going to spend the rest of this time with your eyes trained on the man holding the Beaver's face because there are several layers to a performance going on at the same time there (puppet at face value, puppet's intrinsic meaning and Mel's repression all combined) and it's something to see Mel Gibson take his acting into another level like that.
The main plot revolves around fitting his life back together around the puppet and the repercussions of this with his family. There is a sub plot involving Anton Yelchin playing the son and his interaction with a classmate played by Jennifer Lawrence where it's a little myriad of tropes that somehow avoid forming an overly obvious teenage love story.

I got a lot out of this film and I will be rewatching it very soon. I feel as though the film Ted may have ripped some of it off for the fight scene in the original Ted. The fight scene in this is brutal, not funny and should be seen as a precursor to the inevitable finale.

A great cast and what must be one of Mel Gibson's best performances.
Seanny One Ball is offline   Reply With Quote