Sadly it’s a case where a lot of its components work in isolation, but not as a whole.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 14, 2024

Maybe it was the talent behind the camera that brought it down, but we will never know if someone with a little more of a focused eye and pen could have done with the Sheff's story.

| Original Score: D- | Apr 3, 2024

Chalamet conveys all of the necessary contradictory emotions to portray an addict, paradoxically both in love with, and repulsed by, his own tendencies and actions. It's bravura work.

| Original Score: B+ | May 2, 2023

“Beautiful Boy” is a heartbreaking father/son story based on the memoirs of author David Sheff and his son Nic.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

The real show stopper, though, might be veteran actress Lisa Gay Hamilton (The Practice). She only has a handful of seconds to practically steal the film from the leads.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Episode 16: The Age of Innocence

| Original Score: 48/100 | Sep 1, 2021

The film is, even in its grungiest moments, a little too antiseptic; you never get the feeling it might truly rotate off its own axis and get you a little high on its own supply. It is, dangerously, dead serious and respectable

| Jul 2, 2021

The It boy of the moment Timothée Chalamet delivers yet another outstanding performance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2021

...in reality Beautiful Boy coasts too much...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2021

What always captures my attention is both Carell and Chalamet sharing a scene together. Those scenes are filled with tension and emotional anxiety, and when the film focuses on those moments, that is when it shines the most.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 7, 2021

A little too structured, a little too clean to hit the gut as a story of Nic's descent into depravity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 1, 2021

Everyone plays their part with earnest vulnerability, none more so than our leads, Chalamet and Carell, who are the heartbeat of the film and are primed and ready for award season gold.

| Jan 28, 2021

Carrell is excellent, while Chalamet here truly earns the acclaim...

| Oct 22, 2020

Thanks to an incredibly committed performance by Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy manages to be slightly watchable.

| Oct 2, 2020

This is a very hard movie to watch, simply for its heavy subject matter. Chalamet has so many relapses that we grow increasingly frustrated, which I suppose is the point. Our hearts go out to it, but we're ultimately let down.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 29, 2020

It's a little like watching snippets from a better film, while the filmmaker stands on your shoulder and repeatedly yells the word 'cry' directly into your ear canal.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 15, 2020

...because it does not extend itself very far into the world, the film tends to fall back on itself, generating a somewhat precious, self-absorbed tone...

| Aug 5, 2020

This penchant for explicit articulation can sometimes seem ill-conceived and too didactic ... and the film's narrative beats scan as fairly standard for an addiction drama.

| Jul 30, 2020

Some movies lack background. Beautiful Boy lacks so much as a foreground, or much of any ground at all. It's a Lifetime movie at worst and a glorified acting exercise at best.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2020

Cleverly written but repetitiveness leaves a jumble of short-lived highs equalling in a failure to connect fully to grasp any empathy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 13, 2020