Let me take you back to 2011, where Academy darling Jodie Foster and universally-beloved auteur Mel Gibson came together to produce a hilarious look at depression from a delightfully original angle that delivers a message just about anyone can relate to: when you hit rock bottom, sometimes the only thing to bring you back is the magic hiding inside your own diseased mind.
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| There are many incorrect statements in that last sentence. |
How can I begin to describe The Beaver? Start with the atmosphere of What Women Want (troubling behavior played off as adorable comedy), plus Little Miss Sunshine quirk (look at this charming broken family!). Sprinkle in some light humor and some harsh truths, but apply both generously so that they barely compliment one another. Bake at 475 under Jodie Foster's unsettling gaze for 90 minutes, and you get something close to The Beaver. But be careful biting in...there's a secret filling inside.
It's very telling that the last exchange in that jolly little lie of a trailer is Gibson asking Foster, "Where do we start?" and she replies, "We start with the good part." Jodie has clearly learned a thing or two about marketing your passion project in Hollywood: fill the trailers with your fun elevator pitch and inject every frame with that fresh-from-Sundance feel, and you've got yourself the indie darling of the year. Very good, Clarice. So, let's do that--start with the good part.
The good part is that no matter how you feel about Mel Gibson, as far as acting goes, this is his best work in years. Granted, a good portion of that is owed to his ability to project a vaguely drunken Michael Caine impression through an eerily expressive beaver puppet, but still--if you can somehow break your gaze from the cold dead stare of those button eyes, you'll see the actor is still very much alive back there. And to the film's credit, that is clearly its ultimate purpose: to remind us all that Mel Gibson is still a shining talent despite being also being a racist lunatic. (Supposedly, production on the film began before the troubles, but was pushed back from release directly because of Gibson's ruined reputation.) The whole cast is solid, and includes Jennifer Lawrence and the late Anton Yelchin as the moody teen lovers a few years before their respective franchises took off.
Jodie Foster is pulling double time as director and actor, and she is predictably competent at both. I am not exactly a fan of her directing style--she has a taste for awkward moments that I (a lover of awkward moments) can't bear to sit through. But for every sour note she holds on for too long, there are many lovely scenes throughout her films that coax you back in until the next big cringe. A moment in The Beaver that sticks out to me is when Anton Yelchin catches a glance of Jennifer Lawrence between classes, looking positively dreamy in her pretty summer dress, beachy blonde curls swept to the side--moments later he receives a text from her, a triple-chin selfie with her tongue hanging out. It's only a few seconds and it's quickly lost within a montage of other cutesy scenes, but it's a charming moment that subtly communicates a great deal about Lawrence's character and their relationship.
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| That's just what we love about you, Jen. |
Now, to address the beaver in the room. I would like to commend this film for being as sensitive as possible to the issues it addresses, taking the time to properly explain and define exactly what is being portrayed. There are many scenes depicting depression that feel experienced and honest, a lived-in kind of devastation that's palpable onscreen. The puppet therapy thread is somewhat less authentic, taking on more of a My Strange Addiction vibe than a legitimate (albeit rarely used) medical practice. Despite its flaws and the odd creative license here and there, they clearly did some research, and I have to give them props for that.
So...that's the good part. I wanted you to know that before we dive in. I want you to get marinated in that offbeat dramady flavor so we have some solid ground to start from. I want you to get the feeling I experienced going in, and that feeling is smug. I thought I knew what this movie was. I remember the buzz, all the snarky jokes we made at that cutesy trailer. We were all vaguely curious, but in the end no one saw it (maybe one of the copies Jodie had personally mailed out to members of the Academy got a watch, out of politeness), and it has become one of the few Gibson exploits we have collectively chosen to forget.
Years later, I was still smirking as I put on the movie for the first time. I was assured that I understood the way films work and what to expect from a movie involving whimsical alternative therapy. Well, just hang on, friends. I haven't even gotten to the synopsis yet, and I do mean the real synopsis, not the sweet morsels the trailer or some pedestrian critic's 2011 review will feed you. Nope, you're getting the whole plate.
Walter has a nasty case of rich white man depression. He runs a toy company that's on the rocks, he barely knows his kids, and his marriage is strained seemingly beyond repair. Not much is said on whether this is a result of the depression or the cause of it, but all are clearly deteriorating under Walter's mournful thousand yard stare. After being unceremoniously kicked out of the house, he stops at a liquor store on his way to a motel, where he discovers a beaver puppet in the garbage. The night involves a few clumsy attempts at suicide before Walter hears the puppet speak to him, channeling a grumbling Cockney life coach that motivates him to piece his life back together.
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| What a fun way to work through your devastating mental illness. |
Walter returns to his home mere hours after being ejected from it, speaking through the puppet and bearing a stack of informative index cards stating that the puppet is a prescribed therapy tool and that any communication should be addressed to the beaver. His family's reaction is decidedly mixed--his younger son is enchanted while his eldest is repulsed, and his wife waffles somewhere in between. Meanwhile, Walter's co-workers are instantly accepting of and delighted by the beaver. The business is booming on Walter's idea for a beaver-themed tool kit, which somehow becomes a hot-selling item due to the sensationalism of the company's CEO speaking through a puppet. (And, I don't know, kids like building things? And beavers? Sure.)
Walter's life is making a dramatic turnaround with the beaver's help, but soon it becomes clear that he is having trouble disengaging from the beaver's personality. It eventually comes out that the puppet was never prescribed by any doctor and that Walter sort of came up with this method on his own. Despite lying to everyone and essentially using the puppet as a way to "switch off" for a few months, the beaver isn't wrong when he says that his methods are working. Oh, and there's a whole subplot about how Anton Yelchin hates his dad but loves Jennifer Lawrence, and she's this troubled popular girl/secret graffiti artist whose brother died. It barely matters.
Now at this point, I'm sure you're really starting to wonder where I'm going with all this. You're thinking this sounds like typical film festival fluff, a sugary vanity project hoping to mend an admittedly talented maniac's lingering popularity. This isn't horror, not even close. There is no way this quirky family drama could suddenly veer into violent unhinged insanity.
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| This guy wouldn't just go off on you like that. |
There are signs fairly early on that something is amiss within the film. Walter's downward spiral happens in the first few minutes, perhaps to prepare us for the rough road up ahead. But we've all seen our share of funny suicide attempts in offbeat movies before--this is rock bottom, the darkest hour, nowhere to go but up. Surely, we will all learn something from this experience. We meet the beaver and things begin to improve. Work is great, home is great...it is a little weird that he keeps the puppet on during sex, but the music in the montage is telling us that all of this is going just swell.
But then, at about the midway point of the film, there is a scene in which Walter and his wife go out to dinner, and she requests that, just for tonight, he take off the puppet. It does not go well.
The dark underbelly of Walter's recuperation is quickly swept away as a standard mid-movie montage of sadness rolls by, but you sit there not absorbing it. You're haunted by what you've just seen, downright chilled. Things got real there for a second. All the whimsy got sucked out of the room and replaced with inexplicable dread. You can't just go back to caring about Anton Yelchin's girl troubles. There are dark clouds up ahead.
Walter eventually realizes that the beaver has become its own independent personality, and it has no intention of ending their therapy. The beaver considers him a lost cause and plans to completely take over his body like a parasite consuming the host. Walter finally wakes up and has a Tyler Durden moment, getting into a literal fistfight with himself. By the end, both man and puppet are bloodied and broken, but still breathing.
And then, dear friends, the moment comes when this movie reveals what it has been all along: a charmingly bizarre descent into utter madness.
He cuts off his arm.
He builds a tiny coffin measured to fit his arm, and then he fucking cuts it off.
In a movie where Jodie Foster weeps in a fancy restaurant and Chekov makes out with Katniss in front of a graffiti mural, a man banishes his alternate personality by hacking off one of his own limbs with a buzz saw. The film closes with a tender scene depicting Mel Gibson finally getting along with his son as a shiny new prosthetic lies across his lap, but you're likely too busy still screaming into your fist to notice because HE CUT OFF HIS FUCKING ARM!
If you're a normal person, you won't watch this movie, but supposing you do, you'll walk out of it saying, "Well it was a weird journey but I think he's really gonna turn his life around." But if you're like me--the horror fan--you'll come out gobsmacked and strangely delighted at having the rug pulled out from under you this way. Granted, it is slightly troubling that the ultimate message seems to be "Hey, maybe if you actually had something to be depressed about, you'd find more reasons to realize life isn't so bad," not to mention the implication that mental illness is as easily removed as a limb.
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| Thank goodness you took action before the infection could spread to your brain. |
Nonetheless, it is hard to not be impressed how horror elements are placed disturbingly close to family-friendly sweetness. And I'm not just talking about a man who saws off his own arm in his goddamn garage sweet Jesus, but moreso the havoc depression can wreak on a good life from the inside out. These moments are sickeningly familiar for many people, and they're portrayed with dismal sincerity. Maybe you didn't have a panic attack in a public place, or punched yourself into submission, or began projecting a more charismatic personality in your daily life, but maybe you felt like doing it more than once, and that can be pretty frightening.
But don't let those tender truths distract you from the fact that this is a body horror film masquerading as a heartfelt comedy, in which a man is slowly consumed by a hostile spirit trapped in a puppet that wants to be human. It perfectly explains why Walter found the puppet in the trash, presumably dumped there by a former victim that managed to escape the beaver's seductive force before it was too late. Change the music and add some ominous shadows, and this easily becomes a horror film. As it is, it's another one of Jodie Foster's unsavory cringe-fests with a particularly bizarre edge. It does kind of make you rethink Home for the Holidays, although that movie hardly needs help being scary.
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| This movie is a nightmare for everyone in it. |
You may feel you don't even need to watch the movie now that it's been thoroughly spoiled for you. Maybe this review was enough. Maybe it's enough just to know what happens in the final fifteen minutes of The Beaver. But should you find yourself faced with this innocent-sounding title during that kickback Sunday movie binge, remember my words of warning, and prepare yourself for a bizarre horror gem hiding under a cute poster in the comedy section.
