LaBeouf writes and co-stars in this heartfelt, well-performed film based on his own personal history as a troubled young actor and addict
If there’s a LaBeoufaissance to be had – of whatever duration – then this may be the starting point. Honey Boy is a fluent, heartfelt, tightly structured and well acted personal story starring Shia LaBeouf, who reportedly drafted the script in rehab. The director is the Israeli-American film-maker Alma Har’el, and this tale of lost souls in
trailer parks is a little like the scenarios conjured in her 2011 documentary Bombay Beach.
The drama is based on LaBeouf’s own unhappy early life as a young actor who got into trouble with the unholy addiction trinity: drink, drugs and celebrity. Lucas Hedges plays a star, here renamed Otis, who has just sulkily accepted rehab as an alternative to jail after his latest boozy bust-up with the cops.