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The Beaver

The Beaver (2011)

May. 05,2011
|
6.6
|
PG-13
| Drama

Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.

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ellimic
2011/05/05

I thought this was a very deep and meaningful film, Mel Gibson is a great actor and has shown in such films as The Conspiracy Theory that he is great at these sort of films.Here's the story as I saw it; Walter Black was chronically depressed having estranged himself from family, friends and his business. He had tried all kinds of help with no success, so he finally hits bottom and attempts to commit suicide, which only results in him knocking himself unconscious.His sub-conscious then takes over, giving itself a voice through the medium of a hand puppet. His sub-conscious (aka the Beaver) helps to guide Walter back to his family and friends and rejuvenates his business. But that is not enough to save him, so it starts to push Walter away from his family again, taking him further than before.This is genius thinking, having shown Walter a life with his family and a successful business his sub-conscious is now taking it away from him; this act forces Walters mind to snap back in order to fight for the life he desired.Then as a final sign that he was truly back in control, Walter literally severs his sub-conscious from its control of him by cutting off the arm holding the hand puppet.And I thought the side story of his eldest son was an excellent addition, showing what effect Walters actions were having on those closest to him.

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Vonia
2011/05/06

This is as weird as I thought it would be.Puppet Therapy is never this extensive. In addition to the obvious fact that it is used with children. I only decided to watch it because I am watching all of Miss Lawrence's films (as always, she performed gloriously, portraying a troubled high school valedictorian).Has anyone else noticed how much Foster looks like Hunt? Enough for me to be thinking about "What Women Want" for a significant part of the film.I will say, though, that Mel Gibson did manage an impressive rendition of the clinically depressed. (Attribute his personal life details here.) There were also a few memorable quotes. "This is a picture of Walter Black, a hopelessly depressed individual. Somewhere inside him is a man who fell in love. Who started a family. Who ran a successful company. That man has gone missing. No matter what he's tried, and he's tried everything, Walter can't seem to bring him back. It's as if he's died, but hasn't had the good sense to take his body with him. So mostly what he does is sleep." (I know how he feels.) "This is a picture of Walter Black, who had to become The Beaver, who had to become a father, so that one day this might just become a picture of Walter Black." (I love how The Beaver narrates the opening lines, but, by the closing lines, Walter has regained himself and is the one doing the narrating.) "Today I'm here to warn you, that you are being lied to. Our parents, our teachers, our doctors, have lied to us. And it's the exact same lie. The same six words, 'Everything is going to be okay'. What if it isn't? What if some of human experience is just something you inherit, like curly hair and blue eyes? What if pain is just in your DNA, and tragedy is your birthright? Or what if, sometimes, right out of the blue, when you least expect it, something changes?" "I'm not okay, not at all. What do I do with that? What do any of us do? Besides lie. This is what I believe, right now there is someone who is with you, someone who is willing to pick you up, dust you off, kiss you, forgive you, put up with you, wait for you, carry you, love you. So while everything may not be okay, one thing I know is true, you do not have to be alone." "We reach a point where, in order to go on, we have to wipe the slate clean. We start to see ourselves as a box that we're trapped inside and no matter how we try and escape, self help, therapy, drugs, we just sink further and further down. The only way to truly break out of the box is to get rid of it all together. I mean, you built it in the first place. If the people around you are breaking your spirit, who needs them? Your wife who pretends to love you, your son who can't even stand you. I mean, put them out of their misery. Starting over isn't crazy. Crazy is being miserable and walking around half asleep, numb, day after day after day. Crazy is pretending to be happy. Pretending that the way things are is the way they have to be for the rest of your bleeding life. All the potential, hope, all that joy, feeling, all that passion that life has sucked out of you. Reach out, grab a hold of it, and take it back." "Funny. I think it is a mess (her graffiti art), but you think it is amazing. I think you are amazing, but you think you are a mess." **** Spoilers **** I understand the idea, the personification, the fact that he has a mental illness. But making The Beaver come alive, having some sort of psychotic episode, then trying to saw off his hand crossed some sort of line. It is not that I do not empathize. I assure you that I have seen my share of real life psychotic episodes; that scene in particular seemed unrealistic to me. I am not sure whether or not it has to do with the fact that it was Mel Gibson.

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Dalbert Pringle
2011/05/07

I'd definitely say that The Beaver's most demented "WTF? moment" was when Walter (while having sex with his wife) still kept the beaver puppet stuck on his hand.... In that perplexing moment which I would call "sheer idiocy", I'd say that that sort of frickin' nonsense takes the cake.... (Sheesh!) I think that this film really sent out all kinds of totally screwy messages about dealing with matters concerning serious psychosis. While watching this flaw-infested film I kept asking myself - "What the hell is director Jodie Foster trying to tell me with this crap?" One thing that I'm certain of is that, at some time in her life, Jodie Foster must've had to deal with some of her own personal issues with her real-life father in order to take it upon herself to direct a film of this one's dysfunctional nature.With "The Beaver" it totally killed me that at the absolute peak of his lunacy, Walter Black was at his most creative, actually managing to save his faltering company from bankruptcy. And, on top of that, his screwed-up beaver-psychosis made him a media-celebrity who was winning rounds of applause and approval from the entire American population.(See what I mean about being sent screwy messages?) It looked to me as though Walter's schizophrenic state had actually elevated him to a "super-hero" status in the eyes of so many.One thing that I couldn't figure out was, if Walter was refusing to take off the beaver hand-puppet for any reason, whatsoever, then, how the hell was he able to get his suit-jacket and shirts on and off? And, like, when one eats steak one's got to use 2 hands for cutting it, right? So, was Walter getting the beaver to saw his meat for him with its teeth, or something? In summing up this film's story in a nutshell, I view its symbolism as being very clear to the fact that Walter, literally, had his hand shoved up the beaver's ass.I resent Jodie Foster for this terrible attempt at trying to manipulate my emotions. I'm really beginning to hate these sorts of films where a great tragedy has to take place in a broken family before its apathetic members start to really care about one another. (Give me a break!) And finally - As far as Mr. Mel Gibson goes, I think that he was totally the wrong actor for the part of Walter Black. Let's face it, Gibson is just way too superficial as an actor to be at all convincing in a demanding role such as this one.It was so obvious to me that Gibson (with, or without the frickin' beaver) couldn't carry this film all on his own. And that's why so much screen-time was invested in paying attention to Black's teenage son, Porter.Putting Porter's predictable, little "cutie-pie" romance with Norah aside, I thought this boy of Black's was one very dangerous, little psycho (like father, like son?) with his neurotic notes pasted up in his room, and, especially, him repeatedly smashing his head at full-force against the bedroom wall until his noggin made a gaping hole right through to the other side.(Of course, Porter's head was never bruised after any of these brutal assaults. Nor did anyone in the house ever hear these thundering bouts of insanity.... (Very peculiar, indeed) Needless to say, The Beaver was a box-office flop. People stayed away from this one in droves. Its budget was $21 million. It has since grossed approx. $1 million.All-in-all - The Beaver was shallow, sugar-coated worthlessness. Thank goodness this tripe only lasted for 90 minutes.

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grantss
2011/05/08

Well-intentioned, but flawed. Takes on a complex subject - depression - and handles it with sensitivity (as one would expect from director Jodie Foster). The set up - depressed man uses puppet as his voice - is interesting, emotional and well done. However, Foster fails to make any profound statements with this. The movie drifts after the set up, and in the end you feel that all the emotion is wasted, as the ending is rather tame.The secondary plot, involving Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence's characters, seemed unnecessary - padding. Though, it does mean we have the wonderful Jennifer Lawrence in the movie, so it's not all bad...Great performance by Mel Gibson in the lead role. His personal life may be a shambles, but he still has the acting skills. Good support from Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence. Anton Yelchin was a bit irritating, however.I really wanted to like this movie more than I did.

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