Review: "Honey Boy" is a Therapeutic and Tender Approach to Healing

           When I walked into Honey Boy, I expected to see nothing more than a semi-biographical film about Shia LaBeouf’s turbulent childhood in the spotlight. When I left Honey Boy, I felt torn open, raw, and exposed. I felt a sense of healing—of peace. A feeling that Shia LaBeouf has been so desperately grasping for over the course of his life.

Honey Boy (2019) dir. Alma Har'el

LaBeouf’s retelling of his childhood is not an act of self-flagellation. He isn’t forcing pity out of his audience. LaBeouf is simply a man trying to find peace with his father in the best way he can—his art. Despite all of father’s faults—the abuse, the abandonment, the trauma—LaBeouf’s approach to his paternal guidance, or lack thereof, is kind. He isn’t trying to publicly shame his father for the years of pain and violence that were inflicted on him. He instead chooses to show a lost and broken man trying to navigate the world right alongside his 12-year-old son. It’s tender and gentle, despite not needing to be. That sense of undeserving forgiveness and understanding is what surrounds the whole film. It’s LaBeouf’s journey to peace.

Shia LaBeouf’s self-insert, Otis Lort, is on the surface a young boy who lashes out at his father and the world around him. The way Otis speaks to his father, almost like he’s beneath him, is an act of self-defense. It’s the only weapon a young, helpless child has against a drunken, violent grown man. When Otis goes to court-mandated therapy, he expresses that the only thing of value his father gave him was pain which he was able to apply to his work. Such words are true to LaBeouf himself; in a Variety interview with actress Kristen Stewart, he stated that the only thing in life that brings him joy is acting. In his own words he claims “the most intimate moments of my life happened on set. I think I'm deeply dissatisfied in life.” To use his art, his one true mouthpiece, to heal and grow is what makes Honey Boy so powerful.

           The approach Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges take towards the portrayal of child and adult Shia LaBeouf/Otis Lort is truthful. They don't ask for permission. They take the script and turn into something open, and human, and universal. These two young actors are powerhouses who know exactly what they're doing and how they want to do it. The vulnerability that flows within their performances is what grounds the story even more than it already is. The lack of fear that Jupe and Hedges have towards the material is the films anchor.

Lucas Hedges carrying Noah Jupe

The film itself is so deeply raw and personal; I felt almost like I was invading somewhere I wasn’t wanted or intruding in on something I shouldn't be seeing. The bravery of LaBeouf to share his story is unreal and will always remain unreal. For him to be able to access empathy for, arguably, his biggest bully is what allows LaBeouf to access emotions within himself beyond anger, and rage, and bitterness. It is what allows LaBeouf to begin the healing process. At the end of the film, he finds peace with his father, which allows him to find peace with himself. He can't change his past, but he can change the future. In his own words “a seed has to totally destroy itself to become a flower.”

Shia LaBeouf on Playing His Own Dad in Honey Boy