This film represents the directorial debut of Jodie Foster, who also stars as the main character’s wife.
The Beaver is about a man named Walter Black, who owns a failing toy company and is going through a depression. He is separated from his wife and lives in a hotel room. One day, while buying liquor from a convenience store, he comes across an old beaver puppet in a dumpster.
Taking it with him, he suffers an accident that causes him to black out. When he wakes up, he suddenly finds himself talking to the beaver puppet. This gives him a new sense of confidence.
With this confidence, he visits the family house and starts to re-win the hearts of his wife and younger son, using the newfound personality of the beaver. A new life is starting for Walter.
His relationship with his wife takes an unexpected boost, and he even develops a successful new toy product based on the beaver puppet, which saves his company. Things seem to be going smoothly for Walter.
However there is a catch. Walter wears the beaver puppet everywhere he goes, hiding his real-life role as Walter Black and instead taking that of the Beaver. The beaver’s personality starts to shine more than Walter, and we begin to see that Walter is too distanced from reality.
It’s almost as if the beaver completely takes control of his body. It would be no shock if Walter woke up one day to see that he is covered in brown fur with a pair of buckteeth and a tail. This does not happen of course. The movie, however, takes a sudden and twisted turn towards the middle.
While this is happening, we get to look at the life of Walter’s older son, Porter. He makes a living from writing his classmates papers for cash. His talent is that he can make his writing sound like anyone else’s. His latest job is to write a graduation speech for a girl he develops a crush on.
He soon finds out about her checkered past while constructing her speech.
Porter has a personal hatred for his father to the point where he is writing examples of his behavior on sticky notes, to make sure he never becomes like him. A good portion of the movie involves Walter trying to reconnect with Porter.
Before watching this movie, one thing should be clear; this is not a comedy. There are a few “chuckle” moments in the beginning, where Walter starts to bond with his new personality in the beaver puppet.
But as the film progresses, the comic tone becomes strongly played down the longer the beaver stays on Walter’s hand.
The story, written by Kyle Killen, is a little too unusual to execute. Even the way that Walter creates this “beaver” personality is not well explained. It just seems tacked on, as if the screenwriter suffered a writer’s block.
Perhaps if there was a little less of the beaver and more of the other characters, this could have worked flawlessly. Despite this, the characters themselves say enough to put the pieces in place.
This was one of Mel Gibson’s first starring roles since Signs (2002) and Edge of Darkness (2010). He gives one of his best performances as Walter Black. He succeeds in presenting a legit and accurate example of someone suffering depression.
Despite all of the controversy that surrounded Gibson for many years, his performance in this movie might make you see some unusual things about what is going through his head.
One surprise performance in the cast is Anton Yelchin, who plays Porter Black, the older son. Yelchin has starred in movies such as House of D, Fierce People, Charlie Bartlett, and, more recently, Star Trek.
Though his performances were good, he always seemed a little contained in them, limiting his emotion range.
In this film, we see Yelchin take a step forward in his acting range.
Foster also really shines in this movie, with both her acting and her directing.
One thing that needs work is the camera movement (the camera unnecessarily pans around the actors, mostly in one of the dinner scenes).
Aside from that, the camera distances and composition of the frames are fine, and the atmosphere of the film has a unique charm. Foster brings out good, if not greater, performances from actors. She should direct more in the future.
The Beaver was not a commercial success and despite its cast of stars, the film failed to find a wide release and stayed in the art house.
Though the premise is unusual, it is worth checking out.
While discovering things about the characters, you may discover things about yourself.