The Beaver (Review)

There are a handful of good movies to be made out of a script like The Beaver. The problem with Jodie Foster’s film is that it desperately wants to be all of them. As strange as the film’s premise is, it certainly lays a solid foundation for an interesting—and perhaps profound—indie comedy/drama. The key to effective films like this is that they should never veer so far down one of those directions that they’re doomed to never come back. This is what makes The Beaver so problematic. When it plays everything down the middle, it’s passable. When it takes a dark turn into Seriousville, I wasn’t so willing to along for the ride. It’s a film as unstable as its protagonist.

Mel Gibson plays Walter Black, a “hopelessly depressed” man who can barely get himself up in the morning. After his wife kicks him out of the house, he finds a beaver hand puppet in the dumpster outside a liquor store. He immediately finds himself enthralled with his new companion, and when he puts it on his hand a new, foreign personality takes him over. As such, he begins interacting with people as the beaver rather than himself. Walter is a man who hates himself so much that he’s always looking to become somebody, anybody else. In a way, the beaver fills that void. His wife (Jodie Foster) takes him back and his youngest son (Riley Thomas Stewart) loves him again once he dons the puppet. Only his eldest son (Anton Yelchin) isn’t so accepting of his new rodent-like personality. Meanwhile, Yelchin—who spends his time writing school papers for his fellow students—begins a romance with class valedictorian Norah (Jennifer Lawrence). This b-plot alone has enough obvious symbolism to last you for the rest of the year.

Let’s begin by doing away with the elephant in the room: Mel Gibson is, by all accounts, a troublesome human being who seems to have some very serious problems of his own. On the flipside, he is a heck of an actor. His performance in The Beaver is one of the best I’ve seen of his, even if at times he seems to exist in a different, better movie than the one Jodie Foster is directing. Still, it’s hard to watch his work in The Beaver and not think of the troubles Gibson’s own life is going through. Just don’t think this film is meant to be his shot at redemption. Principal photography on this film was completed in November 2009; well before the latest round of Gibson scandals.

The Beaver was written by Kyle Killen, whose script topped The Black List back in 2008 (an annual list which ranks Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays). There’s certainly a whole lot of ambition to be found here, but whenever the film digs deep into the emotional well it too frequently comes up dry. Perhaps this can be attributed to Foster’s direction, which is often far too confused. It’s hard to connect with a film when even it isn’t sure what emotion you’re supposed to be feeling. In the theater I was in, there would often be a few giggles at several moments at times when I wouldn’t even think to laugh. There were also times when I was the only one laughing. When that happens, it’s clear you’ve got something of a mess on your hands. Every tonal decision seems to be the wrong one. Foster is a fine actress—even if I have some problems with her performance here as well—but her direction of The Beaver doesn’t quite work.

(Full disclosure: Elizabeth Meriwether’s script for No Strings Attached was on the Black List the same year as The Beaver. So make of that what you will.)

There’s a distinct feeling throughout the film that the audience and Foster are simply not on the same page. This is not aided by Marcelo Zarvos’ musical score, which accomplishes the feat of being simultaneously too strange and too bland. In a way, this is a problem that can be extrapolated to the rest of the film as well. I’m not sure if The Beaver should have aimed lower, but it definitely should have been aiming somewhere else.

GRADE: C