With Golden Globe nominations out and a few minor awards bodies already doling out accolades, it’s pretty clear that whatever Oscar hopes Ben is Back might have had are gone. Written and directed by Peter Hedges, his son, Lucas Hedges plays the titular Ben. The film starts with Ben returning home from rehab for the holidays at the request of his mother, Molly (Julia Roberts).
On paper, the film is ripe for awards buzz. It has Hedges in his second meaty performance of the year after Boy Erased, it has Roberts in a Mamma Bear role that feels like a spiritual ancestor to her bitch on wheels performance in Erin Brockovich, and best of all, it has both of them taking on the personal tolls of drug addiction. And yet, there’s something that doesn’t quite work about Ben is Back.
It’s not the performances, though, that’s for sure. Hedges (the son, not the father) has been on a roll the last few years, starting with a sensitive, crushing performance in Lady Bird and continuing with a trio of layered, often devastating performances this year. While his work in Mid90’s is the best thing about that movie and his turn in Boy Erased is already Golden Globe-nominated, his performance here might exceed them both. We don’t know Ben’s history when the film starts, but it becomes clear just how serious his addiction is and how many transgressions it’s made him guilty of from the very first scene.
As Molly and her other children sit in rehearsal for a Christmas play at their church, Peter Hedges intercuts moments of Ben back at their house, cursing and trying to find a way in. His energy is manic, clearly that of someone whose body is screaming for a fix, so it’s no wonder that when Molly and the kids discover him there, there’s and edge of fear to their conclusion.
Admittedly, as good as that scene is at setting up the characters and their dynamics, it wouldn’t work without Roberts’s performance too. In a manner of seconds, she shows the audience just how happy and scared she is to see Ben. Though Hedges and Roberts don’t exactly look like mother and son, as actors, their faces crumble in exactly the same way as they shift from performing joy to betraying their characters’ the emotional turmoil that joy masks.
For Hedges, that ability emphasizes just how upsetting it is to watch this sweet, seemingly soft boy slowly reveal to the audience and his mother everything he’s done in the past to sustain his habit. For Roberts, it makes the moments when that façade of benevolent suburban mom falls away to reveal someone more vindictive and mercenary all the more shocking.
Take the scene where Molly and Ben encounter his childhood doctor at a mall. The man is suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s and when his wife stands to get their food, Molly offers to sit with him. It seems a nice gesture and, at first, it is. She reminds him of Ben and the way he treated him when Ben broke a limb as a child, but then her tone turns pointed as she recalls that the doctor kept giving Ben stronger and stronger pain medications despite her concerns. Roberts brings an unnerving chilliness to that moment, but it turns hateful when Molly ends her monologue by saying she hope the old man burns in hell. It’s Roberts’s first “give my daughter the shot!” speech, but it’s not her last.
Though Ben is Back initially seems like the kind of holiday-centric family drama that will climax with an argument around a dinner table, Hedges takes his story in a very different direction. Rather, his film is about the lengths a mother will go to protect her child. Though that’s not new territory, it’s difficult to not see parallels in the lengths Ben goes to to make amends for what he did while addicted and what Molly does to save him from himself. While it’s unclear whether Hedges intentionally draws that parallel, it’s part of what makes Ben is Back stick with you long after the credits roll.
It’s perhaps difficult to fully dissect everything Hedges is trying to say without spoiling what happens, but suffice to say, it doesn’t end with some heart-warming Norman Rockwell-esque tableau of family bliss. Addiction is not easily overcome or easily understood—particularly when you’re trying to decipher its effects across an entire family.
Hedges tries to grapple with that here and he certainly does a more thoughtful job than this year’s other Oscar-bait addiction drama, Beautiful Boy, but there’s still something missing. Ben is Back may not be a totally satisfying film experience, but Roberts and Hedges’ performances can’t be denied.
Rating: 7.5/10
Ben is Back is currently playing in select theaters.
