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The Beaver: Human Disaster Movie

By Brock Wilbur · May 9, 2011

The Beaver will not do well at the box office. It’s a small movie up against summer tent poles like Thor, and the marketing push has been very small. But it’s not the lack of awareness that will keep moviegoers away; it’s the strongly polarizing reaction that audiences feel towards its star: Mel Gibson.  And by polarizing, I really mean that everyone hates him. There’s just no way around that. Which is, as of the last few months, a very confusing stance.

I mean, Charlie Sheen has copied Mel Gibson down to the smallest detail (anti-Semitism, wife beating, ridiculous public statements, trouble with the law, rehab), but you don’t see anyone wearing Mel Gibson t-shirts around West Hollywood, or quoting his breakdowns on Twitter.  And from a standpoint of talent or creativity, you’ve got a guy who coasted through a network sitcom versus a writer/director/actor that’s brought to life some films in the last twenty years that stand in a category all by themselves. And yes, sometimes that category is “batshit crazy”, but it’s hard to deny the talent inherent in the production. Kind of like finding ways to appreciate the filmmaking of Birth Of A Nation, despite, you know, everything.

Without defending either one, I guess I can’t see how the public can react so differently to two equally reprehensible human beings; by despising the one who made Braveheart and falling in love with the guy from Major League 2. Apparently, Mel Gibson’s hate speech just didn’t have enough trademarkable quotes. Calling a female cop “sugar tits” is just no match for “Tiger’s Blood”.

So, if you’re one of the few people making it to a theatre to catch The Beaver, you’re either the evolved cinema patron who refuses to let emotional reactions stand between you and art, or you’re part of that 99% coming to revel in the spectacle of a falling star’s bizarre and desperate bid for a comeback. And The Beaver does not disappoint.

Jodie Foster directs and co-stars in this film about a man (Walter Black) who tries to overcome depression and a failed life by communicating only through a hand puppet, with a voice and personality all its own. Spoiler alert: This puppet is a beaver.

That’s also the last time I’ll mention Mel Gibson’s character name, because it’s useless to try defining them as separate entities. Jodie Foster knew exactly who she was using, why she was using him to make this story, and how impossible it would be for audiences to see Gibson as anyone else at this point. And she uses it well.

After opening with a narrative sequence that owes a great debt to Wes Anderson, Foster gives the audience exactly what they want: a long series of attempted suicides by Gibson. Schadenfreude, indeed. But also the only way to give the audience any chance of liking Gibson’s character. It takes a good fifteen minutes of brutal sadness and the heavy hammer of failure consistently beating him down, but you reach a point where you, (yes, even you) can find a way to feel sorry for Mel Gibson.  And then we can begin rebuilding.

In terms of post-modern career savers, Foster tries her very best for her friend, and experiences mixed results.  Gibson beats the audience to every joke about what an awful person he’s been, how much fun it is to watch a train wreck when you aren’t involved, and how sometimes there are no excuses for human behavior.  They also make some daring choices too. There aren’t many actors coming off well-publicized domestic abuse charges who would include brutal husband/wife fights in their next film. And for the real fans of Gibson’s career, be on the lookout for the shot for shot remake of the opening scene of Lethal Weapon, or the completely unexplained self-flagellation in the opening sequence.

Now, did you scoff at the premise? Save the real guffaws for the first few moments we hear The Beaver speak, because you’re about to spend the rest of the movie listening to Mel Gibson do his very best Michael Caine impression. I’m not joking. Go find a trailer. Watch it. Come back. I’ll wait.

That’s insane, right?

So how does it play out of the course of the film? A lot better than you’d expect. The puppet itself is designed so well that it becomes warm, welcome, and genuinely touching when it needs to be, and twistedly frightening when things get weird. Let’s hope the same crew designs the Terby for the forthcoming Lunar Park adaptation. And yes, this set-up leads to some situations that work less successfully than others, but more often than not, you’ll stay with it.

One of the most intriguing things about the film is how the writing differs for The Beaver himself. As Gibson’s spiritual guide, he’s prone to giving long speeches and waxing philosophical for anyone who’ll listen. In some of the sequences, the reactions other characters present makes it seem like you should disagree with The Beaver’s approach to life, but somehow these are also the sequences where he gives the best advice.

Another strange choice is to never really explore why Gibson is depressed. In the beginning of the film, we’re simply told that he’s now a very sad guy, and the rest of the story unfolds with his process of overcoming that and rediscovering himself, but it’s never clear what lead him there in the first place. In other movies, this might’ve seemed like a huge oversight, but it works here if only because, once again, this isn’t a character as much as it’s Mel Gibson, and we know why he’s sad. Or do we? Really, it’s a set-up for an everyman character that shows he’s just as messed up as you or me or my father or his father.

A large chunk of the film also follows Gibson’s teenage son (Anton Yelchin) and his relationship with class valedictorian (Jennifer Lawrence) which is a mostly by the numbers tortured teen artists subplot, but it has some genuinely adorable sections. Some of these diversions can be quite long, and offer a pace and realism that helps balance out The Beaver running the failing toy company story, which in turn makes those sections a lot easier to swallow.

In the end, is it a stretch to see Gibson play a crazy, emotionally ruined, terrible human being? No, but he still does it… very well. Does the film do anything particularly memorable or earth shattering? Plot wise there aren’t many surprises, but tonally it can definitely catch you off guard.

Its greatest success is probably in reminding the audience that the line between being you and being Mel Gibson is smaller than you might think. Part of it feels a little propagandist in showing that this actor is just a regular guy with regular guy problems that sometimes get out of control, but that works both ways. The Beaver is essentially about how people respond to life hating you, and that’s something we all go through at one point, or many points, but your reaction to that ass kicking is what defines you as a person. Sometimes the fault is all yours, sometimes there’s mitigating circumstances, and sometimes shit just happens. Sometimes you’ve been deliberately cruel or you’ve failed in ways you wish you could blame on drugs, others, need, or fear, but humanity is defined by these experiences. Apologies will never be enough, and some people will be lost to you forever, even if you find the strength to work for redemption, but that working process is all that matters in the end.

And that’s why a part of you will wind up cheering for Mel Gibson. Because if he can come back from this, you can too. Because no matter who you are, you’re just not as fucked as that guy. (All apologies, Charlie Sheen.)

There’s a point right after The Beaver is first introduced, where I knew there was something decidedly special about this movie, but it only made sense within the context of the theatre. In the two trailers playing before the film, we glimpsed upcoming features from both Steve Carell and Tom Hanks, where middle aged men with problems and failed relationships were going to rediscover who they really were and take control of their destinies. Both trailers featured sequences where the men went clothes shopping, found new looks that helped sell their newfound success, and after a brief montage went out to conquer the world. When The Beaver first meets Mel Gibson, he lambasts him for watching too many home improvement shows, claiming that change could not be accomplished just by putting up a new coat of paint and moving the furniture around. That real change was hard and painful and required sacrifice. That you couldn’t just move around inside the house, you had to blow it up.

The Beaver might not be perfect, but I’d much rather watch a film that believes salvation is in the trenches, not at Nordstrom.