Honey Boy: Desperately Seeking Shia

With Honey Boy, Shia's life escapes from your Buzzfeed articles and Reddit's front page to join the rest of us in the physical world.

Amidst the mayhem, melodrama, and memeage (see here) of Shia LaBeouf’s career, he has remained somewhat immune in the face of defamation, thriving in the annals of internet, know-your-meme culture. Well this should be interesting.

As a performer and persona, he sits among the likes of Kanye West and Jeff Goldblum; stardom turned mythos. From his Disney Channel days to his present status as Hollywood’s tortured half-brother, Shia seems to be fully aware of his metamorphosis. However, his transcendence into artistic madness had never been fully explored on either parties’ counts (Shia’s and his audiences’). An anarchist one day, a drug addict the next, and an actor in his Shiassance (the suffix “ssance” being used in the same vein as “McConaissance”), the world (Shia included) has always accepted the versions of Shia that are present, but never had the time or energy to find the source of Shia’s mysticism. Until now.

Honey Boy, written by and starring a 33 year old LaBeouf, wants to be his origin story. It wants to teach; it wants to explain; it wants to explore the psyche of its creator. These are things that it wants to do for an audience it cares so deeply for. From the first few minutes, you can feel it wanting, desperate to give an answer to the question: Why is Shia LaBeouf? And then comes Shia’s hypothesis: If I am the way that I am, then it must be my father’s fault. Thus, Honey Boy unfolds like an experiment with its writer at the helm.

The character acting as Shia surrogate, Otis Lort (at different ages played by both Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges) is too elusive, too scattered, and too stubborn to be able to be dissected. Otis’ demanding rodeo clown dadager (the opposite of momager), is played by Shia himself, stepping into his father’s shoes to understand his past. The film ping pongs between past and present, laying out puzzle pieces on the table, and painstakingly trying to fit them together. At the end of the film, Shia reveals the result of his experiment: Try again later. His soul-searching is inconclusive. By all accounts, this anti-catharsis is not to the movie’s detriment. Much of the criticism I see of this film is due to its lack of answers. What others see as a lack of cohesion, I see as a stepping stone to Shia’s true intention in making the film. What stands to me as a more intriguing choice is the production's decision for documentary filmmaker, Alma Har'el to direct the film.

There are two reasons I can think of that Alma Har'el was brought on to the project. The first is for her experience directing documentaries. In a perfect, alternate, time-travel filled universe, Honey Boy would not exist; Shia would have just traveled back to his youth and observed it for himself. Since modern technology does not have that capability, filmmaking is best we can do in that regard. In terms of the “doc-like” nature of the film, I believe what people are actually commenting on is the rawness of Jupe, Hedges, and LeBeouf’s performances. Performance is by far the strongest aspect of the film, and at points it seems as if visual storytelling is thrown out the window to following actors who embrace their characters so tightly that performance leads the narrative of the film rather than a concise shotlist or blocking. The second reason is due to the film’s lack of a mother figure. Honey Boy is obviously focused on Shia’s father-son relationship, but still manages to maintain a somewhat motherly perspective. A phone call with Otis’ mother mimics how Har'el’s sees LaBeouf's characters— compassionate, but from a distance. Overall, my main issue with the direction is not necessarily its execution, but that LaBeouf did not take the reins himself.

While Har’el does a competent job with the material, at the end of the day, this is Shia’s rodeo. Not having his directorial perspective is a shame, considering he is involved in all other aspects of the film. It is his story, after all. Though I understand why he might have chose not to, there is a version of this film that exists from Shia LaBeouf’s perspective— one that that cuts out the middle-woman and goes directly into the fire on its own. Essentially, Honey Boy is not so much a film, but a performance piece similar to his previous work.

From its inception to its release, the film has one one task: Why is Shia LaBeouf? It’s a question he has been exploring through many of his other “stunts". #IAMSORRY famously placed Shia in a room with attendees one on one; a meditation on his experience being watched by audiences. Maybe I can find myself in others. #ALLMYMOVIES saw Shia at New York’s Angelika Film Center, where he consumed all of his films back-to-back-to-back in a never ending marathon. Maybe I can find myself in my work. And Honey Boy is no different. This iteration being the closest to home— requiring the most amount of work, physically and emotionally than he rest of his pieces. Maybe I can find myself in my father. And although this attempt has yielded inconclusive results, it is perhaps the warmest the artist has gotten to his true origins.

Honey Boy builds and builds for some scenes, then eventually retracts, often embarrassed or unwilling to share motivations of its characters for fear of judgement either by an audience, or by Shia himself. In this way, I assume the film runs parallel to its writer. It kicks down walls of traditional narrative and opts for an experiment that is as brave as it is worthwhile. Honey Boy ends on accident, skipping over answers and feelings it cannot locate within its creator. At least not yet. Shia could have chosen many other mediums to express his identity quest, but his decision to craft a film is a progress toward his eventual answer. As an audience, both to Shia in “real-life” and on screen, we witness a man’s attempt to let people into his therapy, his healing process— to share an anecdote with a friend in the hopes that they can help him understand himself better. The exciting part of Honey Boy is not the promise that it has the answers that Shia LaBeouf is looking for. It’s in the fact that it gets pretty damn close.