‘Ben is Back’ does addiction right
It was beginning to seem impossible to make a decent drama about an addict; first, because addiction tends to bland out character and turn everyone into the same boring person. And second because the cycles of addiction are inherently repetitive and therefore undramatic, a matter of getting on and off the same wagon, over and over, until death or recovery.
But now comes writerdirector Peter Hedges to show why people give him money to make movies. He has cracked it. He has come up with a way to make an addiction film that’s moving and effective, one that not only has the capacity to surprise, but that keeps surprising. Almost every 10 minutes something unexpected happens that turns the story in an arresting new direction, and yet “Ben is Back” never once feels manipulated or mechanical.
Hedges steers clear of the addiction cycle problem by compressing the action to less than 24 hours. It begins on the afternoon of Christmas eve, when Ben comes back. He’s the oldest son of Holly — that is, Julia Roberts — and he has been away at a rehab center for several months. He announces that he has been doing so well that his counselors have given him a holiday pass.
What Peter Hedges has realized, before anyone else, is that you don’t need to show a guy passing out in order to convey that he has a drug problem. Instead, we can read his problem in his mother’s manner — Roberts is delighted to see him, but seems edgy, afraid to let him out of her sight; and in his sister’s air of foreboding. As played by Lucas Hedges, the filmmaker’s son, Ben seems like the sweetest young guy in the world. But we know that he has been a blight on his family, long before we get any details.
Just in terms of plot construction, this is something of a revelation, that incidents alluded to can be more effective that incidents depicted. These hints of past horrors make us curious but also fill us with dread that something bad might happen. But in the meantime, all seems well. Ben goes with mother, stepdad (Courtney B. Vance) and siblings to an evening church service, at which his sister (Kathryn Newton) is the featured singer, despite an apparent inability to sing in tune. Meanwhile, their night is just getting started.
The director does a nice job of directing his son. He does not give into sentiment, does not try to force us to love this young man, as “Beautiful Boy” tried and failed to do. And as a consequence of his not forcing us, of his allowing us to approach the central character at our own speed, we end up caring a lot and growing into an appreciation of Lucas Hedges’ matter-of-fact performance. On the surface, there’s youthful energy that translates into an optimistic air. But in quiet moments, we notice in Ben’s eyes shame, embarrassment, degradation and guilt — the four horsemen of self-loathing.
Yet his performance is never self-pitying, which makes Lucas a worthy screen son for Julia Roberts, who is hard charging and no nonsense, even when playing someone terrified. Always happiest at the extreme edges of the emotional register, Roberts is at her best here — fierce, angry, desperately improvising. In one scene, she runs into Ben’s old doctor, who seems to be suffering from dementia. She cracks through his haze by telling him that it was he that started Ben’s addiction problem. “You prescribed pain killers, varying his dose,” she says. “I hope you die a painful death.”
Imagine how you’d like Roberts to say that line. That’s exactly how she says it. In its depiction of something that millions of families are suffering through, “Ben is Back” bears witness to the pain of real people. But so do lots of lesser movies about addiction. What makes “Ben is Back” different is that, even if this kind of pain is completely outside your own experience, you’ll feel some of it watching this movie.