“Well, make me look good, honey boy.”

From Honey Boy.

As an actor, Otis (Lucas Hedges) has a busy, popular, and varied career, but his emotional issues and struggles with alcohol addiction have landed him in another court-mandated rehab.  The lead counselor (Laura San Giacomo) at the newest rehab pushes Otis to face the cause of the trauma that often puts him at odds with the law and those around him.  When his career was beginning to take off as a child actor, twelve-year-old Otis (Noah Jupe) was pushed to excellence by his eccentric and unstable father, James (Shia LaBeouf).  Living in a ratty motel, trying to make it in the acting world, Otis and James live a life that blurred the line between love and abuse.  Trying everything in his power to avoid the past, adult Otis is often at odds with the therapists (including Martin Starr) and trying to get along with his roommate (Byron Bowers), but he can never seem to escape the childhood he spent trying to please a father that was jealous of Otis’ quickly-advancing career.  While James struggled with his sobriety, young Otis tried to take care of himself and his father while also hiding their struggles from the other adults in his life.  As Otis’ career begins to take off, James desire to help Otis be a better actor also causes him to become more erratic and hurtful.  Growing up with James forced Otis to try to find a role model in a man tormented by his failures, so that now when Otis tries to move past his father’s involvement in his childhood, he is left with a confusing tangle of both regret and inspiration.

Inspired by the real childhood of Shia LaBeouf, the movie is intense and heartbreaking to watch, yet also hard to turn away from.  Jupe and Hedges both bring an equal amount of heartbreak to their respective representation of the same character; LaBeouf also manages to create a complex and intense character.  Due to the focus of the movie, Honey Boy is not for everyone, but those that watch will find a somber tale of both trauma and healing.

| Rated: R | Running Time: 93 minutes |Genre: drama |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 9* of 10|Nudity: 1 of 10|Sexuality: 1 of 10|Gore: 0 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|