Sometimes painful to watch, but it is also a moving depiction of a man's struggles to understand and perhaps forgive.

| Oct 4, 2021

The movie feels very raw. LaBeouf's voice is very unfiltered through this movie... You can tell that he's working through things as he writes the movie.

| Original Score: B | Jun 17, 2020

...a very personal and painful statement from LaBeouf and it's to Har'el's credit that she gives it some context and focus, as well as extracting wonderful performances from all the actors...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 3, 2020

Honey Boy, despite its heavy subject, is a deeply empathetic and generous drama that strikes at the heart of complex parent-child relationships and inherited trauma.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 28, 2020

A movie that could easily have crashed and burned. That it does not has something to do with the shared intensity of character and performance. All three main actors share the stage as equals and the level of commitment is remarkable.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 26, 2020

It works as therapy. It works as an acting showcase. But the dips and flips we demand from narrative art are missing throughout.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 11, 2019

It has a lightness of touch and an honesty of tone in it. Honestly it's quite impressive...very well directed.

| Dec 10, 2019

Playing out mainly in the skid-row motel in Los Angeles where father and son live, Alma Har'el's dreamlike film leavens the grimness with humanity and humour...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 9, 2019

Written by Shia LaBeouf, and based on his own early life, this open-sore autobiography feels like the missing piece in the puzzle of this frequently brilliant, invariably self-jeopardising actor.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2019

This is bleak stuff. But it's also hellishly entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 6, 2019

The film delicately bears its scars and finds peace by acknowledging how childhood pains can make and break us.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2019

This looks on paper like a self-aggrandising vanity project, but it is very well directed and performed.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2019

The icing on the cake of [LaBeouf's] indie redemption phase.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2019

As actor, scriptwriter and self-portraitist, LaBeouf sets his ducks in a row and takes perfect aim.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2019

As candid an exploration of stardom as they come.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2019

The script is compellingly raw, coruscatingly emotional, darkly humorous and edgily tender.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2019

Somewhere between a primal scream, a self-acceptance and even a forgiveness of sorts, this is an utterly unique bit of autobiography.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 3, 2019

LaBeouf's script crackles with penetrating dialogue. His acting - LaBeouf portrays a version of his own father - might be the finest of his career.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 2, 2019

Director Alma Har'el brings this cherry bomb to the screen with a delicate touch that is handled with the sort of compassion that was clearly lacking in LaBeouf's upbringing.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 1, 2019

Thanks to Har'el's assertively meditative direction and LaBeouf's profound, emotionally-modulated script Honey Boy is a dramatic tour de force.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 24, 2019