Movie of the week

all articles

Ben is back! Surprisingly, he gives his family a Christmas visit. Especially Mama Holly (Julia Roberts) knows how to grasp the joy. But something is not right. Ben's sister, Ivy, seems to be more afraid than happy, Holly begins frantically to hide the drugs all over the house.

The young man does not come home from the dorm, but from a housing project for addicts. He is on the right track, Ben (Lucas Hedges) claims, so the project leader had let him go for the Christmas visit. He seems to be in a good mood, romping in the snow with his step-siblings and playing the ukulele.

But the past, and that's the great thing about the gripping drama "Ben Is Back," is still alive in the present. It is anticipated by the shocked behavior of Ivy (Kathryn Newton) and Ben's stepfather Neal (Courtney B. Vance), which nightmares must have caused Ben's opiate addiction to his family, through what depths of fear, pain and anger they have gone with him. "Ben Is Back" saves the dramaturgical burden of flashbacks to the past. Everything is explained by the now of history. More even than it first seems.

photo gallery


7 pictures

"Ben Is Back": In the middle of society

At first, "Ben Is Back" is like a classic family drama. The family in question lives well situated on the east coast, chunky SUV and house with unmanageable number of rooms included. The offspring sings in the church choir, the neighbors decorate their front gardens for Christmas, they know each other. The drop is set, now the disaster can come.

Profane root of drug addiction

It also comes - but different, than thought. Because Ben, friendly, open, charismatic, obviously belongs here. He does not fulfill the usual clichés of the drug addict: no scarred puncture wounds, no flickering gaze. This big boy did not rebel against a lying world and crashed.

The root of his drug addiction is much more profane, as the viewer experiences during a shopping spree. There, Ben and Holly meet an older couple, he obviously dislikes, and the so engaging and nice Holly hisses in the helpless old man's ear: "I hope you stewed in hell." The man used to be a doctor and gave Ben a painkiller after a snowboard accident, an opioid, apparently harmless. Like thousands of doctors thousands of Americans.

"Ben Is Back"
USA 2018
Director: Peter Hedges
Screenplay: Peter Hedges
Performers: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance, Kathryn Newton, Mia Fowler, Jakari Fraser, Michael Esper, David Zaldivar, Rachel Bay Jones, Alexandra Park
Production: Black Bear Pictures
Rental: Tobis
FSK: from 12 years
Length: 103 minutes
Start: 10th January 2019

More than 72,000 people died of an overdose in the US in 2017, and hundreds of thousands are dependent on painkillers with fentanyl or oxycodone. It is an epidemic raging in the middle of society. The addiction keeps Ben still trapped. He has to stay by her side 24 hours a day, Holly demands, and he agrees, but he also says, "You do not know me," and, "You can not trust me, never."

Of course, it's only a matter of time before his past overtakes Ben, and when "Ben Is Back" turns into a nerve-wrenching thriller in the last third and Holly wanders through the dark corners of the small town looking for her son, it works Film finally driven by a cold rage. It's as if he's dramatically stinging his teeth in the face of this epidemic, which also has to do with the reluctant forces in the USA, which has been in high tension for years.

Hot Oscar candidates

"If Ben was black," says Holly's second husband Neal, who is black, "he would be in jail now." And Ben himself is convinced: "The government takes care of a shit" and: "If you are poor in this situation, only God can help you."

In "Ben Is Back" the director and screenwriter Peter Hedges packs the pent-up anger about untenable states into an intense movie drama. Straightforward and direct, this film has no formalistic gimmicks and exaggerations. Hedges prepares the stage for his two great main actors.

In the video: The trailer for "Ben Is Back"

Video

Tobis

Julia Roberts is currently in high form anyway, after the overwhelming series "Homecoming" (Amazon Prime), she puts her second big appearance here. And Lucas Hedges ("Manchester By The Sea"), the director's son, once again proves why many in the industry predict a great future for him. No one his age plays sensitive, unsettled men as complex as he. Both are rightly regarded as hot candidates for an Oscar at the ceremony on February 24 for their roles.