Beautiful Boy

Timothée Chalamet, who perhaps broke your heart in last year’s arty coming-ofage hit, Call Me by Your Name, is back to give it another kick for good measure. This time in a film about drug addiction from Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, the production studio whose recent hits include Moonlight and The Big Short.

From Belgian director Felix van Groeningen, Beautiful Boy is the true story of Nic Sheff’s (Chalamet) gruelling battle with crystal meth addiction and his father David’s (Steve Carell) attempts to rescue him each time he relapses. Though the title could easily be a nod to Chalamet’s rising status as a millennial sex symbol, in fact it refers to the beautiful boy David “thought he knew inside and out”, who he sees disappearing in front of him.

While Carell feels a little wooden playing the desperate father, Chalamet is the trembling soul of the story who makes you worry about taking your eyes off him for a second. Though he does justice to the sad desperation of addiction — retching in the passenger seat and stealing his small brother’s piggy bank — his most convincing trick is showing you glimpses of the charming boy you believe his family would keep fighting to get back.

Watching it can feel like waiting for bad news as Nic’s faltering progress repeatedly dashes the hopes of a happy ending. While it might not be the best cinema pick for a first date, Beautiful Boy is a compelling reminder there is no neat story arc in the road to recovery.

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Beautiful Boy is out on 18 January