In The Beaver, as stressed toy company president Walter Black, Hollywood exile Mel Gibson goes through the mill – literally. There is a scene involving a buzz saw in which you think: “What is this doing in a 12a movie?”
Walter has had some form of mental breakdown – although not the type that breaks into anti-Semitic, misogynistic rants like the actor playing him, which partly explains why this film is backed by media company Imagenation Abu Dhabi. He inherited his position as head of Jerry Co, a once prosperous toy company, and feels guilty about it. He also has a son, Porter (Anton Yelchin), who despises him, pinning up post-it notes that catalogue their similarities.
We don’t know what caused Walter’s breakdown, but we discover what cures it: a discarded beaver glove puppet, which Walter puts on. Suddenly, Walter is speaking through his hand and sounding like Ray Winstone, Gibson’s co-star from the remake of Edge of Darkness. We don’t discover why Walter chooses this voice, although there is the suggestion that it is a “class fing”. Walter had it easy and the beaver is a hard grafter, so he wants to do some grafting
. Walter’s big idea to save his failing company, inspired by his youngest son, Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart), who gets up at night to hammer some nails, is a woodwork kit plus beaver supervisor.
It’s an idea no more nutty than the rest of the movie.The script by Kyle Killen might have been the springboard for a broad family comedy, but that’s not how director and co-star Jodie Foster plays it. Foster, who casts herself as Walter’s frustrated wife, Meredith, wants to make a serious point about mental illness: that it is not something that you can necessarily overcome, but that the mentally ill can gain comfort knowing they are supported by their families. The message is sincere enough, but it is packaged in a film that gives off mixed signals: part psychodrama, part comedy, part teen romance and part horror film – Dead of Night is a particular influence.
The Beaver is an undisciplined film, but one that has the intention to speak to people who find relief using the voices of others – in other words, actors. So it is no surprise that Foster, who as a director and occasionally as actress – The Hotel New Hampshire comes to mind, which featured co-star Nastassja Kinski dressing up as a bear – is drawn to the subject of highly dysfunctional families addressed here.
As entertainment, the tone veers too wildly. One minute it gets a laugh when Walter takes the beaver into the bedroom with him; the next, Porter is trying to help a high school student, Norah (Jennifer Lawrence), who has hired him to write a valedictorian speech, come to terms with the suicide of her brother. Yelchin has as much screen time as Gibson, which is disappointing, since the latter is far more watchable. However, the former does feature in the film’s one poetic moment. Porter bangs his head against a wall so hard that he knocks a hole through it and stares through the slates outside, like a small puzzled creature.
The Beaver is at least brave enough to suggest that it does not have any answers to the traumas it depicts. Neither does it solve the problem of what Mel Gibson should do next. If Hollywood practices what it preaches, it should give him a shot at redemption, hopefully without the use of a buzz saw next time.
