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Addiction Without An Ending In 'Beautiful Boy'

Linda Holmes

Based on the memoirs of a young man suffering from addiction and his worried father, the film stars Timothée Chalamet (left) as Nic Sheff and Steve Carell as David Sheff. Francois Duhamel/Amazon Studios hide caption

Based on the memoirs of a young man suffering from addiction and his worried father, the film stars Timothée Chalamet (left) as Nic Sheff and Steve Carell as David Sheff.

What if you were trapped in the middle of a traditional addiction narrative forever?

In a traditional fictional addiction narrative, the person with the addiction begins the story able to coexist with it, if indeed it even has emerged. The addiction deepens, loved ones discover it and there is a single lowest point. Then there is a surrender by the person suffering and a willingness to get help. Or, sometimes, there is not, or there is another fall and then there is death.

But the new film Beautiful Boy, based on the memoirs of journalist David Sheff and his son, Nic, follows a different path — almost a path without a path. What it is about, what it is concerned with, is not the way addiction is lived through , but the way addiction is lived beside , by the person suffering and by the family.

Steve Carell plays David, a loving father we meet as he searches for Nic, whose battles with drugs — crystal meth in particular — already have been an issue for some time. Nic, played with both charm and a maddening slipperiness by Timothée Chalamet, comes and goes from the house, terrifying his father and stepmother Karen (the reliably terrific Maura Tierney) and complicating their parenting of Nic's younger brother and sister. Director Felix Van Groeningen assembles the film in a way that recalls Jean-Marc Vallée's work on films such as Wild and TV projects such as Sharp Objects : Memory is nonlinear, so the story is too.

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A father tells the story of his son's struggle to stay 'clean'.

We see David's early, optimistic, research-driven efforts to treat Nic with a single visit to rehab. We glance Nic's periods of sobriety and the things that threatened them. We realize the strain on David and Karen's marriage that comes from the fact that Karen deals (and her kids deal) with much of the fallout from Nic's behavior, but Karen recognizes the primacy of Nic's mother (Amy Ryan), who is still very much present in his life. Karen's options are limited, and her pain is enormous.

Chalamet uses his particular brand of good-kid charisma very wisely in this film; for much of it, Nic is lovable but not likable. The intensity of his desire to be loved is obvious, but over and over again he manipulates his father by making promises he himself may even believe he intends to keep. And Carell, after taking on flashier roles in films such as Foxcatcher and Battle of the Sexes , here does well as a conflicted and devoted father who gives up large parts of his life to prevent his son's death. David never seems foolish for persevering with Nic, even when he beats himself up over his choices of strategy.

The scenes in which Nic asks for one more chance are wrenching. So often, an addiction story will make the plea facially fraudulent or the right answer too clear, but Beautiful Boy is honest about the fact that David has no good options; whatever he does could turn out to be a great regret.

There are times when, unfortunately, the filmmaking doesn't trust the good performances from Carell and Chalamet to carry the story. One on-the-nose music cue, in particular, skids right past moving to maudlin to kind of embarrassing, to the point where it injects a note of unintentional comedy. And Carell is better when he's controlled than when David is angry — although honestly, it might be that even his anger in dramatic scenes calls to mind his work as Michael Scott on The Office , who was so frequently impotently enraged to such great comedic effect.

Addiction has long been a topic that films and television could not look away from. But very often they attempt to build dramatic tension over the binary question of whether the person will or will not be saved. Will there be a visit to rehab and then a moment of hope? Will there be a disaster? Such stories view loving someone with an addiction as a process of trying to help them push a rock up and over a hill, such that the recovery is complete.

While there may be true experiences that go that way, Beautiful Boy presents the question: What if the story just remains in the middle forever? What if committing to loving them doesn't mean committing to love them until the battle with addiction is over, however long it takes — but committing to love them even though it never will be entirely over? Not only in the "they will always be in recovery and they will always need support" sense, but in that a problem once "kicked" may yet again stand up and kick back?

Nic Sheff relapsed after he wrote about his addiction; after his father wrote about it; after they went on a book tour. There are ways to tell this story that would have been dishonest; ways that would have made it really seem unlikely by the end that such a thing could happen, or would have left the story such that a relapse would make it seem false. This film will make you believe Nic could relapse again (and again), but it will also make you believe that if David has to show up for Nic for another 30 years, he will.

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When Addicted Son Hurts, Father Feels His Own Pain

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By Janet Maslin

• Feb. 21, 2008

Addiction is a compulsion to do the same thing over and over, despite knowing that the outcome will almost certainly be the same. Addiction memoirs often illustrate this same definition of insanity. They follow the same arc, voice the same helplessness and arrive at the same set of conclusions. Yet the genre itself remains so addictive that readers keep hoping to discover something new.

There are reasons to hope that David Sheff’s “Beautiful Boy” will be exceptional. For one thing, it is one of the rare books selected for sale by Starbucks; somebody thinks it is riveting enough to capture the interest of a caffeinated clientele. For another, its subject is methamphetamine addiction, which exerts such body-snatching effects on those who succumb to it. A cycle of madness and decline prompted by crystal meth goes well beyond the horrors of garden-variety substance abuse.

What’s more, “Beautiful Boy” is heightened by a medical emergency that befell Mr. Sheff as well as the drama surrounding his son Nic Sheff. In the midst of weathering the grief and worry that came with watching Nic deteriorate, the senior Mr. Sheff suffered a brain hemorrhage. Did the son’s addiction and recidivism contribute to the father’s health crisis? In the words of one of the many therapists who drift through this book, often to frustratingly little effect for the Sheffs, “Well, it sure didn’t help.”

This story’s emphasis depends on which Sheff is telling it. Nic has written his own book, “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines” (Ginee Seo Books/Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster). It is being published concurrently with “Beautiful Boy,” though it’s not a Starbucks book selection. Nic’s version is rougher, slangier and more in keeping with his literary tastes, which favor Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Camus and Bukowski.

“Somehow the idea of being this drug-fueled, outsider artist has always been really appealing to me,” Nic writes in “Tweak” while detailing the hard drugs, street life and criminal activity about which his father could only guess.

The older Mr. Sheff approaches the family story more conventionally, with more of the baby boom parent’s standard narcissism. As a father he is inclined to place himself tearfully at the center of Nic’s troubles. “People outside can vilify me,” he writes. “They can criticize me. They can blame me. Nic can. But nothing they can say or do is worse than what I do to myself every day. ‘You didn’t cause it.’ I do not believe it.”

So he traces Nic’s unhappiness back to his own divorce — and to his own drug use, which he once regarded as a relatively harmless recreation. Now he is mortified that he ever found Hunter S. Thompson funny and that he tried father-son marijuana smoking as a way of bonding with Nic.

In their overlapping accounts, which share many painful details (Nic stole from both of his trusting, younger half siblings), the trouble escalates with sad inevitability. According to “Beautiful Boy,” the father saw early signs of his son’s problems but was easily assuaged by the boy’s excuses. And there were few useful guidelines that the father could follow. (“Is your child suddenly volunteering to clean up after cocktail parties but forgetting his other chores?” asked one list of warning signs on which the father tried to rely.) By the time the police appeared to take Nic away in handcuffs, the father realized how much he had managed to ignore — and how irreversible Nic’s problems might be.

“When I am alone,” the father writes, “I weep in a way that I have not wept since I was a young boy.” He is driven to this misery by realizing how insidiously meth addiction affects brain chemistry, how rarely it is successfully treated and how maddeningly close Nic comes to recovery, staying clean for long periods before abruptly relapsing. The reportorial side of “Beautiful Boy” explores the likelihood of a cure and comes up with little reason for hope. “There’s never going to be a drug that will make you check the peephole before you answer the door, so if it’s your dealer you won’t answer it,” one researcher tells the father.

The preliminary version of “Beautiful Boy” was a tough 2005 article in The New York Times Magazine, “My Addicted Son.” In expanding it into a book Mr. Sheff added some of the warm, fuzzy dailiness of family life to an otherwise stark portrait (both “Beautiful Boy” and “Tweak” describe rituals like carpooling), and, inevitably, he lost some certitude. The article ended with the hope that Nic might finally have outrun his demons; the book ends on a less resolute but perhaps more realistic note. Among Mr. Sheff’s conclusions: Nic might have benefited from being forced into rehab when his parents were still legally able to compel him to go, if only to keep him substance-free during a critical phase of adolescent development. It also ends with the demonstrably true idea that it is therapeutic both to read and to write stories like the Sheffs’.

On the long, crowded shelf of addiction memoirs “Beautiful Boy” is more notable for sturdiness and sense than for new insight. Even when paired with “Tweak” for a two-faceted look at the same events, it is not unprecedented. (“From Binge to Blackout: A Mother and Son Struggle With Teen Drinking,” about the drastically different perspectives of Chris Volkmann and her son Toren, remains a particularly visceral parent-child cautionary tale.) And on the subjects of parental worry, guilt and mourning, the singer Judy Collins wrote “Sanity & Grace” with exemplary wisdom. Compared with these more specialized books, “Beautiful Boy” has the advantage only when it comes to Starbucks-generated prominence.

“Beautiful Boy” does illustrate how the most clichéd insights into addiction can also be the most accurate. Nothing here is more succinct than what Nic’s little brother says when he tries to explain addiction. “It’s like in cartoons when some character has a devil on one shoulder,” the boy says, “and an angel on the other.”

BEAUTIFUL BOY

A father’s journey through his son’s addiction.

By David Sheff

326 pages. Houghton Mifflin Company. $24.

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Beautiful Boy (2018)

At what age did nic sheff become an addict.

In researching the Beautiful Boy true story, we learned that Nic's life of addiction began with vodka when he was 11. A year later, he was smoking marijuana, which turned into a daily habit by middle school. He was soon experimenting with drugs like acid, ecstasy, mushrooms and cocaine. At the age of 18, he tried crystal meth. It made him feel like he could achieve anything. "I felt like a rock star," Nic says of the first time he used it. However, his feeling of euphoria didn't last long. As the fix wore off, the good feelings evaporated and his body writhed in agony. To keep the good feelings alive, he became an habitual user. He did everything he could to avoid crashing. As a result, the addiction consumed his life and directly affected the lives of his family members. The movie does a good job depicting this. -Oprah.com The real David Sheff with his son Nic Sheff in the late 1980s.

What led Nic Sheff to become a drug addict?

Nic's parents, both journalists, divorced when he was 4 years old. He ended up splitting his time between his mother, Vicki, in Los Angeles and his dad in San Francisco. On the surface, he seemed to handle it fine. He got good grades and was captain of the water polo team. However, the emotions he was bottling up couldn't stay suppressed forever. "The world was really abrasive and overwhelming, and I felt really hopeless. When I started drinking [alcohol], I couldn't stop," Nic says of his first foray into addiction at age 11. -Oprah.com "I mean, I'd always felt so, you know, ugly and weak and pathetic," says Nic. "I felt sick and defective. I felt like there was something deeply wrong with me. I hated myself. I hated having to live with myself. At first getting high seemed like the only thing that could ever make me feel any different." "Every time I did a shot, I truly felt like it was gonna be the shot that finally fixed everything for me. I thought if I could only do enough of whatever drug it was, I would eventually feel whole—no longer like the alien. ...the more drugs I shot in me, and the more sex for money I had, the more f**king depressed and suicidal and crazy I became. Because it wasn't working. I knew it wasn't working. But I kept trying and trying. I didn't know what else to do." -The Fix

Did Nic really keep journals throughout his life?

Yes. Like in the Beautiful Boy movie, the real Nic Sheff kept journals. He used them as a resource when writing his bestselling memoir Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines , which chronicles his experiences as a teenager addicted to drugs. Both Tweak and Nic's father's book Beautiful Boy provided the basis for the movie.  -Oprah.com Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff is one of two books on which the movie is based. The other was written by Nic's father and is featured below.

Were Nic's parents really at first in denial about his addiction?

Yes. "I kind of think we parents are wired for denial because to see the trouble that our child is in is so painful. It's so terrifying," said Nic's father David Sheff. "I would hear the good things; I'd see the good things. I'd block out the terrifying course that we were on until it was impossible to deny anymore." Despite a significant number of absences from school, teachers and counselors weren't overly concerned, with one saying that college would straighten Nic out. They noted his good grades and large number of friends. At first, David kept his son's addiction hidden from family and friends, not wanting them to think badly of his son and how it reflected on him as a parent. -Oprah.com

Did Nic really get into the colleges he applied to?

Yes. Even by his senior year, drugs hadn't had a severe effect on Nic's academics. Like in the Beautiful Boy movie, the true story confirms that he got into the colleges he applied to but first ended up in rehab instead. When he made it to the University of California, Berkeley, he dropped out during his freshman year. -Oprah.com

Did Nic Sheff's dad, David Sheff, ever use drugs?

Yes. "When this hit our family, we were like so many families in this country," David Sheff says. "I was not naive about drugs. I used drugs when I was a kid. ... But I still thought, like most of us, 'This could never happen to our family.' When it did, we were so blindsided. We were so devastated that I realized that this is something we have to talk about." That realization led David to write his book Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction , which was published in 2008 and became a #1 New York Times Best Seller. David says that he had shared and discussed his own history of drug use with his son, a decision that he questions today.  -Oprah.com The real David Sheff (left) admits to using drugs when he was younger, a fact that he shared with his son. Steve Carell as Sheff in the Beautiful Boy movie.

Was Nic's dad, David Sheff, really a well-known journalist?

Yes. David Sheff's lengthy experience as a journalist includes writing for Rolling Stone , The New York Times , Fortune , Wired and NPR. He has interviewed numerous famous subjects, including Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan, Frank Zappa, Jack Nicholson and John Lennon. In addition to penning the book Beautiful Boy on which the movie is based, he wrote the books All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono , China Dawn , and Game Over . As we researched the question, "How accurate is Beautiful Boy ?" we discovered that Nic's mother, Vicki, is also a respected journalist with her own impressive list of celebrity interviews that includes Billy Joel, Dennis Hopper and Eddie Van Halen.

Did David Sheff smoke a joint with his son Nic?

Yes. This comes straight from David's memoir Beautiful Boy . He said that making the decision to share a joint with his son is one that he still regrets. "It was not something I'm proud of," says David, going on to explain that he was just trying to find a way to connect with his son. -Oprah.com Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff is the second of two books that inspired the movie.

Did Nic's father, David Sheff, remarry and have two small children?

Yes. In the movie, Nic's second wife, Karen (portrayed by Maura Tierney), and their two small children, Jasper and Daisy, are all based on real people. Like in the film, they too suffered as David became obsessed with saving Nic. Jasper and Daisy idolized their older brother, who was their friend and playmate. They couldn't comprehend what he was doing to himself and how it was affecting the family. Nic knew that his drug use was destroying his family. He kept using in part to stop the guilt from sinking in.  -Oprah.com

Did Nic Sheff really run away from home and live on the street?

Yes. As years of drug abuse mounted, Nic eventually ran away from home. He lived on the street for some time, sold his body for cash, dealt drugs, and stole money from his family. -Oprah.com

Did the real Nic Sheff sell his body to other men for drug money?

Yes. Sheff, who is a straight man, says that he also did it to feel wanted and to find value in himself. "I mean, don’t get me wrong, I needed the money. But, more than anything else, I wanted to feel beautiful," says Sheff. "I could’ve made money in other ways. Prostitution was something I wanted to do. That sounds crazy f**ked up, but it’s true. And when I was out there, you know, hustling, I’m telling you, a lot of the kids I met were just like me. They wanted to feel like I wanted to feel. They wanted to feel wanted." "Of course, I’m straight, so I would’ve preferred to be wanted by women for sure. But, hell, I’d take what I could get. And men did seem to like me." Friends and family felt that he should leave the short period of time he spent prostituting himself in San Francisco and New York out of his 2007 book, Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines . It is not depicted in the movie.  -The Fix The real Nic Sheff (left) goes into more detail in his book Tweak with regard to the things he did for drug money, including selling his body.

Did Nic Sheff steal money from his seven-year-old brother?

Yes. He says that stealing money from his little brother's piggy bank in order to buy drugs is one of the lowest things he's ever done. "I would have practically done anything to anybody in order to keep getting it," says Nic. He also tried to steal a computer from his mother, Vicki. She found him in a paranoid state hiding in the ceiling rafters in the garage.  -The Fix

Did Nic Sheff overdose and end up in the ER?

Yes. With his body frail and ravaged by meth use, Nic overdosed and ended up in the ER. He says that he was too ashamed to call his father. "There was just this idea that I was just going to shoot drugs until I killed myself," says Nic. -Oprah.com

Did David Sheff really check morgues and hospitals to make sure his son hadn't overdosed?

David Sheff says that this indeed happened. For a period of time when his son was at his worst, David would check morgues and hospitals every couple days to see if Nic had died or overdosed. In the movie, Steve Carell's character calls hospitals in search of his son.

Did Nic Sheff almost lose an arm from an infected needle hole?

Yes. Though it's not shown in the film, the Beautiful Boy true story reveals that Nic almost lost his arm when an infected needle puncture grew to the size of a baseball. -The New York Times The real Nic Sheff (left) as a young man and actor Timothée Chalamet (right) as Sheff in the movie.

Did Nic Sheff go to rehab?

Yes. Fact-checking the Beautiful Boy movie reveals that Nic eventually agreed to seek help. At first, rehab helped him to recognize that he had a disease, despite still believing that he could control his drug and alcohol use. As in most cases, staying clean was hard to maintain. He relapsed multiple times, and as of 2009, had been through five rehabilitation programs. -Oprah.com

Did David Sheff suffer a brain hemorrhage?

Yes. As both David and Nic were working on their books, David suffered a brain hemorrhage, and his son, who had been off drugs for 18 months, relapsed. The hemorrhage affected David's brain in such a way that he had to relearn how to write. It is left out of the film.  -The New York Times

How did Nic Sheff finally turn his life around?

"How is it that, today, I actually don’t totally hate myself?" Nic said in an article he penned for  The Fix . "The only thing I can say is that I actually started listening and started doing what those counselors and psychiatrists and people in meetings were telling me to do. Hell, it was no big secret. They’d been prescribing me medication, telling me what outpatient groups to go to, what doctors to see, what steps to take. I just didn’t listen. I didn’t listen and I didn’t believe."

Does Nic's father David blame himself for Nic becoming involved with drugs?

David says he struggled with blame and has often thought about what he could have done differently to help his son. "I think I could have intervened sooner," he told The New York Times in 2008. "Before Nic turned 18, I could have forced him into a program. I could have dragged him in, and at least it would have gotten him off the streets." "I feel like...my dad did really the best he could, you know, and my mom did the best she could," said Nic, "and they really, really tried really hard, you know, and at a certain point, there was nothing that they could do. There was not one thing that they could do that was going to make me not go down the path that I went down." -Oprah The real David and Nic Sheff attend the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018 and discuss Beautiful Boy .

Where does the title "Beautiful Boy" come from?

The movie is based in part on David Sheff's book Beautiful Boy . The book title comes from the 1980 John Lennon song "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)." Sheff interviewed John Lennon and Yoko Ono in September 1980, roughly three months before Lennon's murder.

What happened to Nic Sheff after the publication of his book?

In addition to working on his second book, Nic was living in Savannah, Georgia with his girlfriend and working as a nude model at a local art school. In 2011, he married Jette Newell, a model, actress and television writer. "That's what I care about now," he said in an article he wrote for The Fix , "I want to provide for the people I love. I want to take care of my dogs and to have kids one day and all that." Nic's second book, titled We All Fall Down , was published in 2011 and focuses on his ongoing efforts to stay clean as he suffers relapses and is in and out of rehab centers. He has since gone on to write for the Netflix TV show 13 Reasons Why .

Explore the Beautiful Boy true story further by watching an interview with the real David Sheff and son Nic Sheff.

Everything Beautiful Boy Doesn't Tell You About The True Story

Trigger warning: This article discusses themes of substance misuse and addiction.

Director Felix Van Groeningen's drama "Beautiful Boy" is based upon a pair of bestselling memoirs by journalist David Sheff and his son Nic Sheff . 

The film follows the lives of Nic and his family from Nic's teen years into his 20s during his years-long struggles with active addiction, recovery, and relapse. The film focuses on the experience of Nic (Timothée Chalamet) and his father David (Steve Carell), but it also explores how Nic's self-destructive behavior affects his mother Vicki (Amy Ryan), his step-mother Karen (Maura Tierney), and his younger siblings Jasper (Christian Convery), and Daisy (Oakley Bull).

Like other films about addiction and recovery , "Beautiful Boy" explores the emotional depths and darkness of Nic's journey. But this film has a hopeful message, which Nic summarized in an interview with ABC News : "As long as there is life, that's when there's always hope." 

During a speech for the 2018 Colorado Health Symposium , David explained that the film authentically does "capture the emotion of what it is like," and watching it was difficult because it was so realistic and haunting. However, he also noted that some details were changed because like with any film based on a true story, there are subtle differences between the theatrical version and reality.

So, keep reading to learn everything "Beautiful Boy" doesn't tell you about the true story.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

Nic struggled with addiction for a decade

Inevitably, long periods of time have to be condensed into a shorter time frame for a feature-length film. In the case of "Beautiful Boy," the same young actors portray Nic's younger siblings, giving the illusion the events happen during an abbreviated period of time. 

Meanwhile, three actors portray Nic: Timothée Chalamet plays Nic as a young man for the bulk of the film, with Jack Dylan Grazer and Kue Lawrence playing younger versions of Nic in limited flashbacks.

This makes it seem like Nic's struggles with active addiction, relapse, and recovery lasted for a shorter period than was the case in reality. Nic began drinking and smoking cannabis in middle school, and by the end of high school, he was using drugs daily. 

In a 2018 interview with Today , Nic shared how when he started doing crystal meth, his life completely changed, saying, "I think as soon as that drug hit me, it was the feeling I'd been looking for my whole life. I spent the next 10 years kind of chasing that feeling."

In the same interview, David told Today, "I spent 10 years trying to save his life. That's what I would tell other people who are struggling with this now, 'Don't give up.'" In the film, the rehabilitation programs Nic attended emphasize how relapse is part of recovery, and this was Nic's experience in life. In an interview with StudiocanalUK , Nic said, "I think honestly, it's one of the best portrayals of active addiction I've ever seen on screen."

If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Nic dropped out of Berkeley during his Freshman year

In the film, after getting accepted to every college he applied to, Nic goes to rehab before attending college on the East Coast. As David Sheff shared in his essay "My Addicted Son" for The New York Times Magazine , Nic was an excellent student in high school. He wrote for the newspaper and was the recipient of the Ernest Hemingway Writing Award. Nic even published an article in Newsweek as a high school student. The summer between his junior and senior years, Nic attended a summer program at the American University in Paris. From the outside, Nic had a bright future.

Even before Nic started his freshman year in college, there were signs he was struggling. Nic was arrested for failing to appear in court for marijuana possession. Contrary to what "Beautiful Boy" shows, Nic actually first enrolled in UC Berkeley, where he began dealing crystal meth to fund his growing addiction. After only three months, Nic dropped out of UC Berkeley, which was his father's alma mater (per  The Hollywood Reporter ).

As David wrote in "My Addicted Son," he encouraged Nic to go to rehab, but since Nic was over 18 and a legal adult, he didn't have to go. Instead, Nic vanished for a week, but eventually, as depicted in the film, he went to the Ohlhoff Recovery Program in San Francisco.

Nic turned to sex work to fund his addiction

During his struggle with active addiction, Nic found himself homeless a number of times and occasionally partook in illegal activities in order to purchase meth and heroin. In the film, Nic even steals from his little brother Jasper's piggy bank, which happened in real life too. In an interview with ABC News , Nic said, "The thing that I regret the most is stealing the money from my little brother."

Although "Beautiful Boy" explores Nic's homelessness and stealing to buy drugs, the film doesn't depict Nic turning to sex work to fund his addiction. Instead, the film addresses the intersection between sex work, homelessness, and addiction through a character that David takes to lunch in exchange for asking her questions during his quest to understand his son's choices and the nature of addiction. 

While the film doesn't go into Nic's experience as a sex worker, the real Nic Sheff has openly discussed this part of his life and explained how it filled an emotional need as well as a financial one.

In a blog post for The Fix, Nic wrote, "I mean, don't get me wrong, I needed the money. But, more than anything else, I wanted to feel beautiful. I could've made money in other ways. Prostitution was something I wanted to do" (per Out Magazine ). He goes on to describe how there were other kids engaging in sex work for similar reasons because like him, "They wanted to feel wanted."

Nic almost lost his arm to an infection from a dirty needle

Nic has candidly discussed the rollercoaster of his life with meth, explaining to Yahoo Life that "The moment that [meth] hit me I was instantly addicted to it. Every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did." While "Beautiful Boy" delves into various moments of things getting worse for Nic, there is one particularly harrowing experience that the film leaves out.

As David Sheff shared in an essay for The Guardian , "Once, an ER doctor called to say he might have to amputate Nic's arm, which had become infected because of IV drug use." Almost losing his arm is one of the many ways Nic's addiction to meth and heroin manifested through nightmarish experiences.

In an interview with Alison Rose with FlickDirect , Nic shared how the filmmakers decided to not include him almost losing his arm like Harry at  the end of "Requiem for a Dream"  because they didn't want to glamorize or sensationalize the story. Although Nic wrote about having this infection in his memoir "Tweak," the filmmakers wanted to make a film that was universally relatable and showed both sides, rather than making a more traditional and familiar movie about an addict descending into the depths of addiction.

Nic's mother, Vicki Sheff-Cahan, is also a journalist

"Beautiful Boy" might be based on a pair of bestselling memoirs written by David and Nic Sheff, but they aren't the only writers in the family. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter , Vicki Sheff-Cahan, David's first wife and Nic's mother, is also a journalist, who has written for People and Playboy Magazine. Vicki is a freelance writer, and as depicted in the film, she moved to Los Angeles after she and David and divorced.

In 2018, Vicki shared her experiences as the mother of a child struggling with addiction in an article for People when "Beautiful Boy" came out. Vicki wrote about how watching the film made her relive the hope she had for Nic's future when he was living in Los Angeles and was sober for over a year: "I was sure the warmth of sobriety had liberated him from the darkness of addiction. Finally, he'd learned how to stay sober. Then he disappeared."

Vicki, like David, never gave up on Nic throughout his active addiction, relapses, and recovery. In People, Vicki wrote, "Although David and I didn't always see eye to eye on how to help Nic, we never shut each other out." While the film focuses on David and Nic's relationship, it does also highlight this teamwork between David and Vicki to help their son.

Nic was diagnosed as bipolar and takes medication to manage his symptoms

As Nic shared in an essay for The Fix, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2003 (per Salon ). Nic wrote that the symptoms in the DSM manual the therapist handed him were "basically the story of my life." Despite recognizing the symptoms, Nic resisted the bipolar diagnosis and refused to take medication for it, as he didn't want to contribute to the profits and system of Big Pharma.

He kept relapsing with his drug use, while his friends who were treating their diagnosed disorders with prescribed medication were staying sober. Nic wrote, "I'm not saying that my being bipolar was the only reason I kept relapsing. But it definitely made staying sober a whole lot harder." 

While he doesn't remember what was the turning point for him to decide to take medication for his bipolar disorder, he did decide to take a new approach with it. Nic wrote for The Fix, "When I got sober this last time, I made a commitment to do whatever it was my doctor suggested, and that included starting on a regimen of anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, and anti-psychotic medication." 

Nic now accepts his bipolar diagnosis and believes medication, therapy, and 12-step work has helped him stay in recovery and sober despite his struggles with active addiction and a history of relapsing.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website .

Nic attended rehab five times

At the end of "Beautiful Boy," we learn Nic had been sober for eight years when the film came out. This sobriety was hard won and didn't begin after the overdose that lands him in the hospital at the end of the film. Nic attended rehabilitation programs five times and relapsed repeatedly (per Oprah ). For years, Nic's sobriety was precarious. As reported by The New York Times , when Nic's father David had a brain hemorrhage, Nic relapsed after 18 months of sobriety.

Despite attending multiple rehabilitation programs, Nic believes he learned something important from each experience. Nic told NPR  that he learned both about himself and the disease of addiction each time he went to rehab and that when he relapsed, it wasn't because of a failure of the treatment centers, but rather, "it just was that I just wasn't ready." David told NPR the last time Nic relapsed and went to rehab, he did it on his own, because he knew where using led.

In an essay for The Fix, Nic shared how contrary to the opinion voiced by many in recovery, he regrets everything about his time struggling with active addiction, saying, "Recovering addicts say they're grateful to have learned from their mistakes. Personally, I wish I never made them" (per Salon ). That's not to say Nic isn't grateful. Nic told Today , "I came away from [the film] feeling so grateful, and like I should never sweat the small stuff again, because I'm so lucky."

David Sheff suffered a brain hemorrhage while writing his memoir

Although it was not depicted in the film, David Sheff had a brain hemorrhage while writing his memoir, "Beautiful Boy," and he had to learn to write again (per The New York Times ). David's health scare derailed Nic's recovery journey, and he began using again after 18 months of sobriety. Both books were temporarily put on hold as David recovered and Nic got sober. David wrote on Oprah , "After my brain hemorrhage and Nic's last relapse, it's a miracle that we survived, never mind that we completed these books."

The film depicts with painful clarity how Nic's addiction took over David's life, threatening his marriage and stealing attention and energy from his other small children. In his memoir, David shares that, like many parents of adult children dealing with addiction, he found support by attending Al-Anon meetings, and learned to have healthy boundaries with his son, rather than continuing the cycle of enabling and codependency.

David wrote in his memoir that his brain hemorrhage helped him understand and accept that life is short, so he needed to redirect some of his own fixation and worrying about his son: "I could not change Nic, only me. And so instead of focusing on Nic's recovery, since then I have focused on mine" (per Allies in Recovery ).

Nic credits reading his father's memoir as a turning point in his recovery

In an essay for The Fix, Nic wrote that reading his father's memoir made him realize he couldn't pretend that his addiction didn't affect his family or others, which was a turning point for him (per Industria Movies ). Although he suffered a relapse while both his and his father's books were being written, Nic remained committed to his recovery. 

David was able to finish his book after taking a hiatus due to his brain hemorrhage, and Nic explained in an interview with Matt Lauer that reading his father's memoir offered a new perspective. He realized he wasn't using drugs in a vacuum and that his actions affected the ones he loves.

Nic further elaborated on this experience to  The New York Times : "Reading Dad's book, the thing that popped out that I hadn't fully understood was how much I hurt people." He goes on to describe his feeling that his own self-destruction was nobody else's business because when you're an addict, "All you see is your own pain. Part of my recovery is knowing that all these people are depending on me."

Nic got married in 2011 and lives in Los Angeles

As reported by Datebook , Nic married actress and writer Jette Newell in 2011 and they live in LA, where Nic's younger siblings also live. In an essay for The Fix, Nic revealed that he and Jette didn't meet in rehab or 12-step meetings, as many people in recovery do, because Jette doesn't have a history of addiction (per Salon ). Instead, their connection goes further back, to a time before Nic was struggling with addiction since they met in middle school.

Their paths diverged after childhood but intersected again 15 years later, when Nic saw Jette at an art opening in San Francisco. Nic described their connection for The Fix, "We were best friends throughout middle school and I was in love with her the whole time" (per Salon ). For Nic, having a healthy relationship with his wife and his family is one of the miracles sobriety has given him. As he shared on Today , he is grateful he can now find joy in the simple things — like his dogs — and his life is so much better because of his sobriety.

Nic became a television writer

Nic and his wife moved to Los Angeles from Savannah, Georgia. After writing multiple books and essays, Nic made the move to television in 2013, starting with writing an episode for "The Killing" and two episodes of "Recovery Road" (per IMDb ). 

Nic explored his anxiety and excitement with this career shift in an essay for the Fix, describing what he felt when he started working in television, which was "the big miracle" of his sobriety: "With the miracle comes fear and stress, self-doubt and all those feelings that made me want to get high in the first place" (per Salon ).

Despite the fear he would sabotage himself by relapsing, Nic felt confident in his ability to rise to the occasion and remain committed to his sobriety by being honest with himself and others about his anxieties about taking on a new challenge. 

Nic's work in television paid off, as he worked as both a writer and producer for the Netflix series "13 Reasons Why" (per The Hollywood Reporter ). Nic wrote an op-ed in 2017 for Vanity Fair , explaining how his own suicide attempt informed his desire to realistically portray Hannah's suicide in the series.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Nic has published five books

Besides Nic's 2008 memoir "Tweak," which partly formed the basis for "Beautiful Boy," he has written four other books. "Beautiful Boy" notes that at the time of its release in 2018, Nic was eight years sober, and according to Datebook , his last relapse came after the publication of "Tweak." The experience of this relapse led to Nic's next book, "We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction," detailing his ongoing struggles with relapse and recovery. 

While fans of "Beautiful Boy" may primarily know Nic as a memoirist, he has also written fiction. In 2014, he published his first novel, "Schizo" and followed it up in 2016 with "Harmony House." In an essay for The Fix, Nic shared how he felt a sense of relief in writing fiction because it meant that he could take a break from rehashing his history of addiction when talking about his writing (per Salon ).

However, in 2019, Nic revisited the topic of addiction and co-authored "High: Everything You Want to Know About Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction" with his father. This is a non-fiction book dedicated to helping parents and teens address the myriad reasons teens experiment with drugs and risk addiction. 

In an informative feature for the Partnership to End Addiction , Nic and David shared how the book explores the science of addiction and also the struggles of growing up that can lead to drug use and addiction.

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Beautiful Boy first look: the messy destruction of a father-son bond

Timothée Chalamet plays a young man who succumbs to meth addiction and Steve Carell his distraught dad in this touching character study.

Katie Goh Updated: 26 September 2018

Web exclusive

Timothée Chalamet as Nick Sheff and Steve Carell as David Sheff in Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy opens with David Sheff ( Steve Carell ) picking up a book in his missing son’s room. It’s a copy of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned. The beautiful and damned in question is his son, Nic Sheff ( Timothée Chalamet ), a high school senior with everything ahead of him; smart, well-liked and with a stable, loving family. Nic is the sort of boy who is meant to succeed in life. Instead Beautiful Boy tells the real life story of Nic’s descent into meth-addiction. Based on two memoirs by American journalist David Sheff and his son, Beautiful Boy is the story of how Nic lost control of his drug habit and how David lost his son to addiction.

USA 2018 12 mins

Director Felix Van Groeningen

Cast David Sheff Steve Carell Nic Sheff Timothée Chalamet Karen Barbour Maura Tierney Vicki Sheff Amy Ryan

UK release date 18 January 2019 Distributor StudioCanal UK ►   Trailer

Director Felix Van Groeningen makes a decision not to depict much of Nic’s life as a drug addict. Instead we focus on the Sheff family: largely on the impact on David but also on Nic’s mother, Vicki ( Amy Ryan ) and David’s second wife, Karen ( Maura Tierney ) alongside their two younger children. We rarely see Nic’s life as a drug-user, instead we see the aftermath through his family’s eyes.

The film is cyclical: Nic gets high, David can’t find him, they reconcile and fight. It’s a repetition of drugs, rinse, repeat that begins to stale midway through Beautiful Boy. But how can you make a film about addiction without the humdrum repetitiveness of attempting to get sober? As a doctor tells David, relapsing is part of the road to sobriety. Beautiful Boy’s authenticity drags down the narrative but it’s a welcome move away from the typical sensationalism of addiction stories. Nothing is black-and-white. Nic wants to get clean but he’s also willing to die for his next fix. Addiction doesn’t have a neat plot.

Chalamet gives the film’s standout performance as Nic. During a confrontation with his father, we can see everything on his face – rage, mania, desperation, and love both for drugs and his father. He’s perfectly cast as the beautiful boy who goes through meth-induced hell and back. There are none of the clichéd tics of Hollywood addiction; this is a nuanced performance of self-destruction. Carell is more subdued, as David approaches his son’s addiction like a good journalist, with thorough research. In a scene in a dinner, David asks his son with desperation, “Who are you?” The boy he knew inside and out is gone, replaced by a husk.

At its crux, Beautiful Boy is the story of a father letting go of his son. In one of the numerous flashback scenes to Nic as a young boy, we see father and son surfing. David loses his son, shouting his name in a panic until he spots Nic, who has gone ahead, searching for a bigger wave and a bigger high, gleefully surfing back into the beach. As a narrative Beautiful Boy falters, but as a character study of a father and son relationship it excels. It’s about a boy wanting to fill a black hole in himself by the most destructive means and a father losing his parental control. How do you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved? You have to let go.

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“Laughing is a way to resist”: Annemarie Jacir on her father-son wedding drama Wajib

Film of the week: The Son of Joseph, Eugène Green’s beatific family fable

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BEAUTIFUL BOY

A father’s journey through his son’s meth addiction.

by David Sheff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 7, 2007

A clear picture of what meth addiction does to a user and those who love him that may help other families better cope with...

“I’ll be fine. I’ve stopped using.” That lie is told again and again in this memoir of a father’s heartbreaking struggle with his son’s addiction to methamphetamines.

The clearly charming and talented Nic first tried marijuana in high school and subsequently went through a decade of using, rehabilitation and relapse. Expanding on a 2005 article in the New York Times Magazine, journalist Sheff ( China Dawn , 2002, etc.) takes readers along on the grim roller-coaster ride. While on drugs, Nic leads a life of self-destruction, deception and crime. He breaks into the family home to steal money; he lies about where he is and what he is doing; he asks for help but refuses the terms on which it is offered. The effect on Sheff’s family is devastating; trying to save his son and also protect his wife (not Nic’s mother) and their two young children, the author suffers a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. He applies his research skills to learn everything possible about methamphetamine, what it does to the brain and what treatments are available. The hard truth is that no one really knows what works best in dealing with meth addiction, or even what doesn’t work. He didn’t cause Nic’s addiction, Sheff comes to understand; he can’t control it and he can’t cure it. Eventually shifting his focus from Nic’s recovery to his own, the author goes into therapy to get past his obsession with his son’s problems. Whether Nic will recover remains an open question at the book’s end, which offers a glimmer of hope, but no promises and no easy answers.

Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-618-68335-2

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PSYCHOLOGY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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More by David Sheff

BOOK REVIEW

by David Sheff

by David Sheff & Nic Sheff

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY

More by Elie Wiesel

by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen

by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal

by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

From mean streets to wall street.

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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Beautiful Boy Essay Questions

By david sheff, essay questions.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

What is the main theme in ‘Beautiful Boy’ by David Sheff?

The main theme in ‘Beautiful Boy’ is addiction and its consequences in society. Nic is a drug addict, and he started using drugs at an early age. Nic’s father, Sheff, has exhausted all his savings to help him recover from the addiction. Besides straining his family, Nic has interfered with his prospects. Therefore, drug addiction is a menace in society because it kills the dreams and aspirations of young people.

Is lack of knowledge paradoxical, according to David Sheff ?

Nic is depressed because of his drug addiction, and he believes that nobody understands his situation. The people around Nic misinterpret his addiction and conclude that it is his personal decision to follow the path. Paradoxically, lack of knowledge is the main cause why people are misjudging Nic. Drug addiction is not a path chosen by an individual but a circumstance that deprives one of making the right choices in life. Therefore drug addicts need to be shown love and support from the people around them to hasten their recovery from addiction.

How does the author use sight imagery in the book ‘ Beautiful Boy? ’

The author uses sight imagery to help readers understand the biased nature of human thinking and judgment. According to Nic, only girls wear tights that paint the female gender negatively. Consequently, human perception is biased, and judgment is not supposed to be based on an individual's physical appearance.

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Beautiful Boy Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Beautiful Boy is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy study guide contains a biography of Patricia Aakhus, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Book Review: Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff

Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction is written by David Sheff. Sheff is a professional writer who lives in California with his second wife and three children. Nic is David’s son from his first marriage. The book begins by describing Nic’s upbringing and their life as a family. Nic is a creative and articulate young man with a zest for life and learning. When Nic begins to use drugs, the story follows the ups and downs of loving someone with an addiction.

Those who have experienced this in their life will relate to the myriad of emotions that Sheff experiences. At times in the book, I felt discouraged and frustrated with Nic for going back to using drugs again and again. As a witness to the stress and desperation the family feels I was skeptical of Nic's promises of recovery. The Sheff’s can provide Nic with access to many resources and chances at recovery but the struggle to overcome addiction transcends social class and privilege. Like most addicts, there is no end to the struggle with addiction and the author acknowledges that it will be a lifelong battle. Like his father, Nic is an author who wrote a book called Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines about his experiences. A movie with Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet was made based on Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction.

Check out Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction on Hoopla, Libby, or from your branch's shelves with your library card today!

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Exploring family relationships and addiction in ‘beautiful boy’.

“Beautiful Boy” was produced by Amazon Studios and was originally a memoir written by David Sheff. The narrative is based on the true story of a young man’s struggle with drug addiction.

In the film, David Sheff is played by Steve Carrell and the son, Nicholas Sheff, is played by Timothée Chalamet. The acting Carrell and Chalamet exhibit is incredibly engaging and realistic.

While I was not a huge fan of the pacing and how the story was told, the film did well in showing the type of relationship the Sheff’s have. With the father being divorced, Nicholas must travel states away to see his mother. However, he does not seem upset with this, though the struggle and difficulty is made clear.

We see Nicholas go into a rehabilitation center, or clinic, to help him ease off his drug use in the beginning of the film and already seems to be getting better. However, addiction is a tricky road, so eventually he turns back to drugs. This is an ongoing issue through the film and it shows how overcoming a battle like this can be. 

The film does well in showing the affect Nicholas’ drug use has on his family. His siblings, father, stepmother and friends watch Nicholas get to a point where they thought he would die. Emotions are heightened, and anger and frustration are explored very well. Nicholas’ youngest siblings are unaware of what’s going on with their brother, and his parents are constantly shown to be frustrated because they are unable to help. Carrell’s character struggles and the audience sees him spiral into a depression, second guess every action of his son and watch his son struggle knowing he can’t do anything. 

Chalamet’s character, on the other hand, was complex. He portrays a very likeable, attractive young man who is passionate about writing, loves his family and feels so much for a girl he met in class. We see him struggle between right and wrong, and eventually, he becomes unlikeable. 

One aspect I would like more insight on was the stepmother. There was a moment in the film where Nicholas is caught stealing stuff from his father’s house to sell. His stepmother, at this point, has had enough. It’s not until this moment, which is close to the end, that we see her completely breakdown. This is the first time we see the complexity of her character.

This film is raw, as is the memoir. I think it does very well showing all sides of the story and how Nicholas got to the point he did. However, since so much had to be crammed into such little time, we don’t get to learn enough about the other characters. Every character in the film has a fresh perspective that could’ve taken center stage and provide a refreshing narrative.

You can watch “Beautiful Boy” on Amazon Prime Video, or buy it to stream later. You can also purchase the book for more on the story at all your local bookstores.

Review overview

8.8 "Beautiful Boy" transcends in acting but lacks in character development and pacing. Impactful film in terms of showing a variation of perspectives.

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Beautiful Boy by David Sheff Book Review

Nowadays, addiction becomes one of the main problems of young adults and their parents. The substance abuse causes dependence from drugs that force a person to do the same actions over and over. The outcome of such addiction is obvious, but drug addicts do not think about consequences. The addict very often becomes insane and starts to behave helplessly in search of new dose of the drug. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff is a representation of father’s struggle and attempt to understand and help his talented son who suffers from methamphetamine addiction. The emotional journey of the writer makes readers feel pain and despair of alarmed father who fights for his son. Therefore, Beautiful Boy is a nonfictional story about the most accurate additional insights that spoil not only addict’s health and life, but also the life of his or her family.

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To sum up, Beautiful Boy is not only a book about father’s sufferings, despair, support and hope, but also about the horrible and dangerous world of addiction that spoils and hurts both addict’s and family’s lives. David Sheff is an example of a strong person who does not give up in difficult life trial. Many readers should notice that children and their childhood have to be the main occupation of the parents because childhood trauma can seriously affect a child’s future. The book causes the strong desire to support and help the father to protect his addict son from mortal danger of drugs. Therefore, the writer shows how love, patience, care and hope can make a miracle and save even an ardent addict.

References:

• Sheff, D. (2008). Beautiful boy: A father’s journey through his son’s addiction . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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Entertainment

‘Bad Boys 4’ trailer reunites Will Smith and Martin Lawrence

'Bad Boys: Ride or Die' is the fourth film in the popular action franchise.

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Get ready for more “Bad Boys.” The official trailer for the fourth “Bad Boys” film, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” has dropped, reuniting fans with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s beloved characters Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett.

“Bad Boys: Ride or Die” takes place after the events of the last “Bad Boys” installment, “Bad Boys for Life,” with filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah returning for their second official “Bad Boys” flick. Once again set it Miami, the film seems to tease the cops’ greatest threat yet as they deal with a mysterious framing of their boss Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano).

The trailer gives fans exactly what they’ve come to expect from the iconic franchise: death-defying action sequences, intense highway chase sequences and, of course, plenty of jokes. Chris Bremner wrote the screenplay from the film, with Smith, Jerry Bruckheimer, Chad Oman, and Doug Belgrad producing, per Deadline. Lawrence, Bremner, Barry Waldman, Mike Stenson, James Lassiter and Jon Mone executive produce the movie.

Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Nuñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, Tasha Smith, Tiffany Haddish and Pantoliano also star in the film. Smith, as we reported last year , replaces Theresa Randle in the role of Marcus’ wife.

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As theGrio previously reported , “Bad Boys for Life” was a huge hit for Sony when it premiered in 2020. The film earned rave reviews from critics and was a smash at the box office, earning more than $400 million worldwide.

“Bad Boys: Ride or Die” premieres June 7 in theaters.

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Screen Rant

The beautiful game review: netflix’s worthy sports drama reminds us why the homeless world cup matters.

Top Boy's Micheal Ward is the MVP in Netflix's entertaining sports drama that deftly balances worthy messaging with humor and compelling characters.

• The Beautiful Game brings the message of unity through football, highlighting global homelessness issues.
• Micheal Ward shines as a complex lead, showcasing the importance of second chances in The Beautiful Game.
• The film avoids sports movie clichés, focusing on authentic human stories of resilience and redemption.

Netflix's new sports movie, The Beautiful Game , could not have come at a better time in relation to English football. Last week, in the lead up to England's match against Brazil, controversy emerged over Nike's decision to change the color of the St George's cross on the English national team's shirt. Nike's design decision — which was in no way exclusive to the England shirt — led to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and leader of the opposition Kier Starmer publicly opposing the change, climaxing in a poorly attended protest march through London on the day of the Brazil game.

Based on a real-life sporting event, The Beautiful Game is a movie directed by Thea Sharrock and released in 2024. Bill Nighy stars as Mal, a coach who guides a group of homeless football players to the Homeless World Cup, where he hopes to lead them to victory and help them find the beauty within themselves.

• The Beautiful Game nicely captures the diversity of the sport
• The film is grounded by Michael Ward's excellent performance
• The story is heartfelt and touching
• The Beautiful Game can feel like a long commercial

The Beautiful Game releases against this backdrop of empty nationalistic posturing to remind us what football (soccer for American viewers) is really all about. The Beautiful Game depicts football as a universal language, breaking down national barriers rather than erecting them. The film depicts England's attempts to win the Homeless World Cup , which are both helped and hindered by star player Vinny (Micheal Ward) as he struggles to accept his situation. While the story is fictional, it was made in collaboration with the Homeless World Cup, and its theme of second chances is inspired by real-life stories of former players.

The first Homeless World Cup took place in Ganz, Austria in 2003, and its 2024 tournament will take place in Seoul, South Korea.

The Beautiful Game Brings The Homeless World Cup's Message To A Global Audience

Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce deftly weaves the mission statement of the Homeless World Cup into the narrative, selecting four teams that highlight the different global definitions of homelessness. While the England team is the primary focus, we're introduced to the US team via Rosita (Cristina Rodlo), an undocumented teenager who is a prospective Dreamers scholar. And then there's the more mature Japanese team, who reflect the overwhelming number of middle-aged and elderly men experiencing homelessness in Japan. South Africa, meanwhile, is delayed by their own border forces due to objection to a migrant from Zimbabwe being on their national team.

The glimpses into the backstories of the other teams reflect these different global communities with economy and empathy.

Boyce never creates anything larger than these sketches of the homeless experience, but he doesn't have to. The glimpses into the other teams' backstories reflect these different global communities with economy and empathy. The stories of the England team are similarly diverse, encompassing addiction issues, the failures of the UK care system, and statelessness. And then there's Vinny, a struggling father, estranged from his daughter and her mother, who refuses to see himself as homeless, despite living in his car. Vinny's journey to recognize his circumstances and accept the friendship and help of others becomes more important than any trophy.

The Beautiful Game

Many former Homeless World Cup players also appear in The Beautiful Game , emphasizing the positive impact that the competition has had on their lives. This adds an extra layer of authenticity, which is aided by a script that, for the most part, avoids some of the biggest clichés of the sports movie genre . That being said, a last minute revelation about the link between England coach Mal ( Bill Nighy ) and star player Vinny threatens to score an own goal. It's a clunky twist that mercifully provides a touching epilogue rather than becoming a driver for the movie's climactic scenes.

Micheal Ward Is The Beautiful Game's Man Of The Match

Given that Thea Sharrock's directing often feels quite televisual, there's a risk that the movie comes across as a feature-length commercial for the Homeless World Cup. However, Top Boy 's Micheal Ward lends the film a great deal of dramatic heft that helps lift The Beautiful Game above such criticisms. Vinny is a complicated character, veering from cold and stand-offish to outright cruel. His disgust at sharing a room with recovering heroin addict Nathan (Callum Scott Howells) builds to Vinny doing something so uncaring that it has major implications for his team.

Micheal Ward and Bill Nighy's understated performances create a fascinating dynamic that feels quite new for a sports movie.

Played by Callum Scott Howells, who broke the hearts of audiences as It's A Sin 's Colin , does similarly devastating work here, which threatens to completely turn the audience against Vinny. However, Ward's quiet portrayal of Vinny's guilt over his actions is the first moment that we see the cracks in his armor. Vinny's armor draws comparisons with the avuncular front that his manager Mal puts up. Both men have similarly adopted a facade to hide their simmering resentments and bitter disappointments. Ward and Bill Nighy's understated performances create a fascinating dynamic that feels quite new for a sports movie.

Nighy isn't convincing as a football manager with a vicious temper, but he shines in the moments where Mal has to deliver learning moments to an angry and unpredictable Vinny. While Nighy and Ward are the standouts, their team is bolstered by some other strong performances. In addition to Howells, there's Kit Young as Cal, who provides a fascinating contrast to Vinny, which causes antagonism at first but mellows into a fruitful partnership on the pitch. Robin Nazari's Syrian refugee Aldar and Sheyi Cole's Jason prove to be the team's head and heart, each getting their own moments to shine.

Threatening to steal the show from everyone, however, is Susan Wokoma, who plays South African coach Protasia. The fact that this cheery and charismatic woman of God has a fierce rivalry with Nighy's Mal is the perfect demonstration of the Homeless World Cup's uniqueness. It's truly a competition that is open to people from all backgrounds, creating a truly equal playing field. While The Beautiful Game can often feel like a commercial for an admittedly noble cause, the script and performances deliver a relatable human story of dashed dreams and second chances that reminds us why such charities are vital.

The Beautiful Game is available to stream on Netflix March 29.

Beautiful Boy

David sheff, everything you need for every book you read., nic sheff quotes in beautiful boy.

People are relieved to learn that they are not alone in their suffering, that they are part of something larger, in this case, a societal plague—an epidemic of children, an epidemic of families. For whatever reason, a stranger’s story seemed to give them permission to tell theirs. They felt that I would understand, and I did.

Whatever the cause—a genetic predisposition, the divorce, my drug history, my overprotectiveness, my failure to protect him, my leniency, my harshness, my immaturity, all of these—Nic’s addiction seemed to have had a life of its own. I have tried to reveal how insidiously addiction creeps into a family and takes over […] in the hope that readers will recognize a wrong path before they take it. If they don’t, however, I hope they may realize that it is a path they can’t blame themselves for having taken.

Other comments from his teachers are effusive praise of his creativity, sense of humor, compassion, participation, and stellar work.

I keep a box in which I store his artwork and writings, like his response to an assignment in which he has been asked if you should always try your best. “I don’t think you should always try your best all the time,” he writes, “because, let’s say a drug atick asks you for drugs you should not try your best to find him some drugs.”

Many drug counselors tell parents of my generation to lie to our children about our past drug use. […] Kids see that their parents turned out all right in spite of the drugs. So maybe I should have lied to Nic and kept my drug use hidden, but I didn’t. He knew the truth. Meanwhile, our close relationship made me feel certain that I would know if he were exposed to them. I naively believed that if Nic were tempted to try them, he would tell me. I was wrong.

I look at the three of them and recall a bewildering emotion that I recognized for the first time back when Nic was born. Along with the joy of parenthood, with every child comes a piercing vulnerability. It is at once sublime and terrifying.

Drug stories are sinister. Like some war stories, they focus on adventure and escape. In the tradition of a long line of famous and infamous carousers and their chroniclers, even hangovers and near-death experiences and visits to the emergency room can be made to seem glamorous. But often the storytellers omit the slow degeneration, psychic trauma, and, finally, the casualties.

Finally someone has said it: so it is my fault that Nic has been increasingly sullen and shadowy and taking drugs and is now lying and stealing. I was too lenient. I am ready to bear this judgment, to accept that I have blown it, though I do wonder about the children in trouble whose parents were overly strict and those who were far more lenient than me and yet whose children appear to be fine.

Meth users include men and women of every class, race, and background. Though the current epidemic has its roots in motorcycle gangs and lower-class rural and suburban neighborhoods, meth, as Newsweek reported in a 2005 cover story, has marched across the country and up the socioeconomic ladder.

He’s in denial. It’s typical of addicts, who maintain and believe that everything is all right, they can stop when they want, everyone else has a problem but not them, they are fine, even if they wind up losing everything, even if they are on the streets, even if they wind up in jail or in the hospital.

He says that one of the most difficult things about having a child addicted to drugs is that we cannot control it. We cannot save Nic. “You can support his recovery but you can’t do it for him,” he says. “We try to save them. Parents try. It’s what parents do.”

He tells us Al-Anon’s Three Cs: “You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, you can’t cure it.”

It led her to conclude that meth addicts may be unable, not unwilling, to participate in many common treatments, at least in the early stages of withdrawal. Rather than a moral failure or a lack of willpower, dropping out and relapsing may be a result of a damaged brain.

It’s a tricky illness. Yes, people do have choices about what to do about it. It’s the same with an illness like diabetes. A diabetic can choose to monitor his insulin levels and take his medication; an addict can choose to treat his disease through recovery. In both cases, if they don’t treat their illnesses, they worsen and the person can die.

“I felt the same way about my son until I realized that he couldn’t get to school or work or a therapy appointment but he could get to pawn shops, get to his dealers, get whatever drug he wanted, get alcohol, break into houses, get needles—whatever was required. […] I felt so sorry for him, thinking, He’s depressed. He’s fragile. He’s incapable. Of course I should pay his bill if he winds up in the hospital. Of course I should pay his rent or he’ll be on the streets. So for about a year I paid for a comfortable place for him to get high.”

If Nic were not ill he would not lie. If Nic were not ill he would not steal. If Nic were not ill he would not terrorize his family. […] He has a disease, but addiction is the most baffling of all diseases, unique in the blame, shame, and humiliation that accompany it. It is not Nic’s fault that he has a disease, but it is his fault that he relapses, since he is the only one who can do the work necessary to prevent relapse. Whether or not it’s his fault, he must be held accountable.

I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. […] He’s just experimenting. Going through a stage. It’s only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he’s not using hard drugs. At least it’s not heroin. He would never resort to needles. At least he’s alive. I have also learned (the hard way because, as it turns out, there’s no other way to learn such lessons) that parents are more flexible with our hopes and dreams for our children than we ever imagined.

Jasper responds, “I don’t think he wants to do them, but he can’t help it. It’s like in cartoons when some character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The devil whispers into Nicky’s ear and sometimes it gets too loud so he has to listen to him. The angel is there, too,” Jasper continues, “but he talks softer and Nic can’t hear him.”

I guess what I can offer you is this: As you’re growing up, whenever you need me—to talk or just whatever—I’ll be able to be there for you now. That is something that I could never promise you before. I will be here for you. I will live, and build a life, and be someone that you can depend on. I hope that means more than this stupid note and these eight dollar bills.

I have learned that I am all but irrelevant to Nic’s survival. It took my near death, however, to comprehend that his fate—and Jasper’s and Daisy’s—is separate from mine. I can try to protect my children, to help and guide them, and I can love them, but I cannot save them. Nic, Jasper, and Daisy will live, and someday they will die, with or without me.

In recovery working with Randy, Nic was the one who explained the insidiousness to me: “A using addict cannot trust his own brain—it lies, says, ‘You can have one drink, a joint, a single line, just one.’” It tells him, “I have moved beyond my sponsor.” It says, “I don’t require the obsessive and vigilant recovery program I needed when I was emerging from the relapse.” […] And so Nic said he couldn’t trust his own brain and needed to rely on Randy, meetings, the program, and prayer—yes, prayer—to go forward.

Addicts’ families walk an unhappy path that is strewn with many pitfalls and false starts. Mistakes are inevitable. Pain is inevitable. But so are growth and wisdom and serenity if families approach addiction with an open mind, a willingness to learn, and the acceptance that recovery like addiction itself, is a long and complex process. Families should never give up hope for recovery—for recovery can and does happen every day. Nor should they stop living their own lives while they wait for that miracle of recovery to occur.

The phone, when it rings, brings on the same state of panic. I am always worried that there is news of another crisis. Or it’s Nic, and I don’t know if he will be sane or high. Or it won’t be him, and I’ll be disappointed. My body tenses up. Oftentimes during meals or when we’re hanging around in the evening, I let the phone ring until the answering service picks it up, because I don’t want to deal with whatever might be coming. I think that everyone feels tension.

Parents of addicts learn to temper our hope even as we never completely lose hope. However, we are terrified of optimism, fearful that it will be punished. It is safer to shut down. But I am open again, and as a consequence I feel the pain and joy of the past and worry about and hope for the future. I know what it is I feel. Everything.

Can we cure addiction? Again, despite thirty-five years of aggressive research, many cases of cancer resist treatment. But we have made dramatic progress. And in the process we’ve relieved incalculable suffering, saved hundreds of millions of dollars, and saved millions of lives. A war on addiction would do the same—and more. By dramatically decreasing emergency room visits and prison populations, we’d eventually free up funds to treat other illnesses, improving health care across the board. We’d eliminate much homelessness and dramatically reduce violence, including child abuse, spousal abuse, and violent crime. We’d help families stay together and repair broken neighborhoods. We’d alleviate immeasurable suffering.