{"id":6565,"date":"2018-12-08T09:05:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T14:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=6565"},"modified":"2018-12-08T09:27:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T14:27:01","slug":"review-ben-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=6565","title":{"rendered":"Review: BEN IS BACK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continuing this year\u2019s sons-in-peril movie trend, \u201cBen is Back\u201d is an uneven crime addiction drama.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s Christmas, and when Holly (Julia Roberts), her daughter Ivy (Kathryn Newton), and Holly\u2019s children by a second marriage, return home, they discover Holly\u2019s eldest son Ben (Lucas Hedges) waiting for them. This is a surprise, because Ben is supposed to be a resident in an inpatient rehab. Holly is happy to see him, but Ivy isn\u2019t so sure. And when Holly\u2019s husband, Neal (Courtney B. Vance), arrives, tempers flair. Ben might be back, but not for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Julia Roberts and Courtney B. Vance in the family drama that isn’t.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cBen is Back,\u201d writer\/director Peter Hedges (\u201cThe Odd Life of Timothy Green\u201d) is blessed with a talented cast not only led by Roberts, but also featuring 2018\u2019s \u201cit\u201d boy Hedges. Unfortunately, what he decides to do with these popular actors is frustrating. The story should have been about the toll that addiction has on a modern blended family. Instead, nearly half the film is marred by a subpar crime story that effectively undercuts the dramatic goodwill generated early. With this collection of talent, there was no need to rely so heavily on familiar crime\/thriller elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lucas Hedges is everywhere this year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And on top of it all, the gritty and familiar subplot is completely illogical. Decisions made by Roberts\u2019 character will have you shaking your head in disbelief. One wonders why there was not another pass on the script in which some of the leaps in logic were reconciled. Instead of the inane thriller material, I\u2019d rather see Vance and Roberts sitting in their living room discussing over coffee how to deal with Ben\u2019s problem. But, alas, Vance is reduced to pining away at the family home, occasionally shouting into a cell phone, as Roberts patrols the darkened streets of the town looking for her troubled son. It\u2019s just not very interesting, and a real waste of good talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a much better film to be made here. Already this year, we\u2019ve seen \u201cBoy Erased\u201d and \u201cBeautiful Boy\u201d deal with similar issues. \u201cBen Is Back\u201d is the weakest of this threesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest boy-in-peril film is the weakest of the bunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1105,1104,279],"class_list":["post-6565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-ben-is-back","tag-julia-roberts","tag-lucas-hedges","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6565"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6581,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565\/revisions\/6581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}