A BREAKTHROUGH
Moving and surprising, tale about addiction much better than others
It was beginning to seem impossible to make a decent drama about an addict.
First, addiction tends to bland out character, yielding similar representations of a boring person. And second, the cycles of addiction are inherently repetitive and, in that sense, undramatic — a matter of getting on and off the same wagon repeatedly, until death or recovery.
But writer-director Peter Hedges has met the challenge.
"Ben Is Back" is an addiction film that’s moving and effective, one that has the
capacity to surprise and does so often. Virtually every 10 minutes, something unexpected happens that turns the story in a new direction; and still, the film never feels manipulated or mechanical.
Hedges avoids the addiction-cycle problem by compressing the action to less than 24 hours. “Ben Is Back” begins on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, when Ben returns home. The oldest son of Holly (Julia Roberts) — who has been at a rehab center for several months — announces that he has ben doing so well that his counselors have given him a holiday pass.
What Hedges has grasped before anyone else is that you needn’t show a guy
passing out to show that he has a drug problem. Instead, we can read his problem in his mother’s manner: She is delighted to see Ben but seems edgy, afraid to let him out of her sight. His sister’s air of foreboding conveys the problem, too.
Ben, as played by Lucas Hedges, the filmmaker’s son, seems like the sweetest young guy in the world. But we know long before we get any details that he has been a blight on his family. In terms of plot construction alone, this is something of a revelation — that incidents alluded to can be more effective than incidents depicted.
These hints of past horrors make us curious but also fill us with dread that something bad might happen. In the meantime, though, all seems well.
Ben goes with his mother, stepdad (Courtney B. Vance) and siblings to an evening
church service, at which his sister (Kathryn Newton) is the featured singer, despite an inability to sing in tune. Their night is just starting. The director does a nice job of directing his son. He doesn’t give in to sentiment, doesn’t try — as “Beautiful Boy” did — to force us to love this young man.
By allowing us to approach the central character at our own speed, we end up caring a lot and growing to appreciate Lucas Hedges’ matter-of-fact
performance. On the surface, he exhibits a youthful energy that translates into an optimistic air. But in quiet moments, we notice in Ben’s eyes shame, embarrassment, degradation and guilt.
Yet his performance is never self-pitying, which makes Lucas a worthy screen son for Roberts, who is hardcharging and no-nonsense, even as a terrified mother.
Always happiest at the extreme edges of the emotional register, Roberts is at her best here: fierce, angry, desperately improvising.
In its depiction of something that millions of American families are suffering through, “Ben Is Back” bears witness to the pain of real people. What makes this film about addiction stand out, though, is that even those who aren’t personally affected by such pain will watch “Ben Is Back” and feel it.