"Beautiful Boy" Is A Story About "Everything"

"Close your eyes
Have no fear
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your daddy's here

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy"

"Double Fantasy" John Lennon, 1980

By Patty Smith
Bowling Green, Ky.

A book and movie review

About three years ago I read David Sheff's book, "Beautiful Boy" about his son, Nic, and his addiction to drugs and alcohol.   The book was so intense and amazing, I read it three more times.

On Facebook one day, I met David and we chatted.  His Facebook page is awesome, too, with stories about many, many parents who have been through similar episodes of alcohol and drugs with their children, though not always ending as happily as Nic's story.  (Nic is now "clean and sober" for ten years.) 

As we chatted one day, I asked David if he would please autograph my book if I sent it to him.  Instead, he sent me a signed copy of "Clean," his latest book that deals with ways and means for children and adults alike to overcome addiction.

As soon as I heard about the movie coming out, I anxiously awaited it to come to Bowling Green, Ky., my hometown.  It hit our theaters last weekend and my husband and I viewed the movie at The Great Escape 12 on Saturday afternoon.

The movie followed along much as the book, and the characters that were chosen to play David and Nic (Steve Carrell and  Timothee Chalamel ) really fit right into the bill.

Although I don't have any addicts in my immediate family, I do have some friends who are.  However, in 1989 after a very messy divorce from my first husband, three years earlier,  I turned to alcohol when the pain of losing my two daughters was too hard to bear.  Alcohol did the ease the pain WHILE I was drinking, but harsh reality finally would set in, along with guilt and shame and other negative emotions alcohol does cause afterward.

Nic Sheff was also from a divorced family, and hated when he had to travel to and from his home outside Los Angeles. (Inverness) to New York, to see his mother,  to fulfill conditions of the shared custody arrangement.  When he was growing up he and his father really had quite the bond.  When no more words would come when David would be trying to express how deep his love was, he resorted to one word "everything." So when the father and son would often say "everything" they both knew that their love was so deep and so beyond words that "everything" would let each know that depth.

Many people found this movie very hard to watch as Nic's disease progressed from marijuana to alcohol to other more serious drugs like heroin and meth.  It is hard to see him and his girlfriend in her living room with spoon filled with crystal meth and shooting it into each other veins after it was "cooked" in the spoon.  The most terrifying intense scene was when his girlfriend overdosed and he was desperately trying to bring her back to life, as he did, just as the emergency ambulance arrived.  She recovered and was taken to the a hospital for treatment.

David had remarried and his family consisted also of his wife Karen, and his son and Jasper and Daisy his daughter.  The brotherly love these children had for their older brother was evident from the start, even before his addiction began.  Wife Karen supported David throughout their marriage when David lay awake many nights wondering where Nic was and if he was alive or dead, calling hospitals to see if he had been admitted.  David often drove around looking for Nic and would sometimes find him hanging out with other addicts.  Many many attempts at rehabilitation had failed and Nic would again attempt to get clean and sober.

Finally alone in a bathroom in New York visiting his mom, in his aloneness and despair, Nic shot up one more time.  He is seen kicking out what could have been his final life on that cold bathroom floor.  But he was found in time and David was called to come to New York.  The doctor said he didn't know how Nic had survived with the amount of drugs in his body, but thankfully he did. in the final scene father and son, arms around each other, holding each other up, leave the hospital temporarily to sit outside in the sunshine and just "be together".

I had pondered over this movie and book many times. Was "Beautiful Boy" about David struggle to help his son or was it more about the addict Nic who struggled so long to get clean?  The movie is also about always having hope, never giving up on your child or your addict or alcoholic. It's about hanging in there.

In conclusion, I quote David from his latest book, "Clean," when he says,  "... most drug use is not really about the drugs...it's about LIFE."  So when my husband said after watching the movie that the movie was really not about the drugs but about the non-dying, non-failing love between a father and son.  Through this unfailing love, David didn't give up and saw his son through his final recovery.  So what is "Beautiful Boy" really about?  The love beyond compare that no one can describe....it's just "Everything."

Patty Smith and her "Beautiful Boy" and son, "Tony"

Patty Smith is retired and is a former correspondent for Western Kentucky Catholic.  She is also an avid reader, movie fan, crossword puzzle champion and Jeopardy fan.  She lives in Bowling Green with her husband, Galen, and their Australian Shepherd named "Jude."  Patty and Galen's son, "Tony" is a graphic artist, a musician, a songwriter, producer and studio sound reccording engineer who lives in Nashville.