Mel is Walter Black a toy company executive and family man suffering from immobilizing depression. He no longer functions in any of these capacities and his family has all but given up on him. Foster who directs and plays his wife Meredith orders him out of the house because the weight of his illness is crushing the family. She seems to want to shock him out of his inertia but it’s clear she loves him deeply and that she hasn’t given up on him.
Their son Porter is disgusted by him and (Anton Yelchin) won’t stay in the same room. Little Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) a fetching brat if there ever was one, is crazy about his dad and mimics him, and is the first to “get” Walter on his new journey.
Walters’s new journey begins after a failed suicide attempt. He jumps off the balcony of the hotel to which he’s been exiled, lands in a dumpster and “meets” Walter the beaver hand puppet, a smart mouthed, Cockney accented tough nut who from here on, does Walters talking for him.
Walter is able to communicate, share his feelings and make his stand, through the beaver. It’s an odd choice, but in Walters’s world it is the only way. There is no explanation given for why the beaver is suddenly Walter’s emissary, he just is, in that smart way people have of healing themselves. But, he is definitely Walter’s mouthpiece.
The beaver is a surly looking, monstrous kind of matted brown beaver puppet with an aggressive stance and a flaming temper. In a deeply weird and effective scene, Walter and the beaver disagree violently, and come to blows. Foster isn’t trying to say that the Beaver is an entity – but for a second we wonder.
There’s a lot of intelligence and humanity that informs The Beaver. It’s a well thought out interpretation of a fascinating script and concept, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. There are a couple of clunker lines that make us laugh when we shouldn’t, that stand out like a sore thumb.
But the real problem is its cool tone. Ironically, the characters are at an arm’s length form each other – no joke. It’s slightly uncomfortable over and above the subject matter. You want so much to like it but it doesn’t want to be liked as much as admired.
Written by Kyle Killen
Directed by Jodie Foster
Runtime: 91 minutes
Source: M&C