Ben is Back

Ben is Back

Starring Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Kathryn Newton, Courtney B. Vance

Directed by Peter Hedges

The Story:
Things are looking joyous for Holly Burns (Julia Roberts) and her family on Christmas Eve.  They're planning on attending Christmas Eve mass to see her daughter Ivy (Kathryn Newton) and her two younger children in a Christmas play, and everyone is full of laughs and merriment.  That is until they arrive home from practice and her older son Ben (Lucas Hedges) is waiting out front.  While Holly seems overjoyed to see him, Ivy is worried and angry, and calls her stepfather Neal (Courtney B. Vance) to come home.

Ben had been in a drug addiction facility, but decided to come home for the holiday, despite it being a landmine of triggers for him.  Holly is happy, but still cautious as she's dealt with Ben's dealings before, and sets out to make him feel at home yet also hiding her jewelry and medicine.  As the day unfolds, Ben and Holly find themselves thrust into a mystery that takes Ben through his drug-addicted previous life, and threatens to destroy the family for good.

The Synopsis:
The life of a drug addict can't be an easy one, nor can it be easy on the people who love them the most, especially during the holidays, when it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.  Thus is the stage for Peter Hedges' written and directed work "Ben is Back," centering on a young man going through the steps to recover from drug addiction who makes a surprise visit home for Christmas to the shock of his family.  While his stepfather and sister are extremely hesitant and against the idea, his mother Holly welcomes him with open arms - but also strict rules to follow.  Ben can't be left alone, and Holly says she's going to stick with him the entire day.  At first it seems that Ben is really on the straight and narrow, but after a disastrous Christmas Eve evening, everything turns upside down as Ben and Holly find themselves raveled in a mystery that hearkens back to all of Ben's past misdeeds.

A lot like last year's "Beautiful Boy," "Ben is Back" focuses not just on the drug addict, but the family as well.  Whereas "Beautiful Boy" focused on the father's pain, here it's the mother who takes center stage, and no one other than the accomplished Julia Roberts could do Holly justice in that respect.  She manages to balance a motherly instinct with the strictness of a drill sergeant with just a look, not to mention her epic speeches and moving moments of clarity as she spends the day with the son she once felt like she lost - and worries she'll loose again.

Playing Ben is independent film darling Lucas Hedges (who's also director Peter Hedges' son), and once again he manages to shine in a heavily layered role that finds the man as devilishly charismatic and charming, yet also self-defecating and insecure.  He tells his mom that she shouldn't trust drug addicts, and then proceeds to tell her events that may or may not be true - to which Holly doesn't believe a word, because she said that he told her himself to never trust a drug addict.  You can't fully tell the lies from the truth when it comes to what Ben has to sell, and Hedges plays the role in a sense where you're sitting on the edge of your seat, expecting something bad to happen at any minute.  It's this continual unknown factor that underlies the entire film, as Peter Hedges does something that we don't normally see in films like this - the whole story.  We don't get a look at why Ben became a drug user or how it affected the family back then, but we're thrust into the midst of things right away, and see the life of an addict slowly unfold as we hear of events that led to their current state without having seen it in flashbacks like other films would've done.

When the bad thing happens, it sends the film in a whole another direction, changing from a family drama to a thrilling crime mystery, which also tonally changes the film and makes it a bit jarring at first before finally settling back into the new genre the film offers.  The thing that remains constant is the acting of Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges, and the relationship between Holly and Ben, as they traverse the dark streets and come into contact with Ben's old lifestyle.  Their parent/child chemistry is hypnotic, and you can't help but keep your eyes on the screen in eager anticipation of what would happen next, while yet the most jarring moments happen in almost silence.  One particular scene that stands out is after Ben visits an old teacher, and Holly learns something about him that no parent should ever know - and we're as repulsed as she is by it, and Roberts truly lets it out at that moment in simple silence.  

As the night progresses, the anxiety and tension continues to build, where we're left wondering there really will be a happy ending at all, or if this will take a dark turn like a lot of drug addicts and their families go through.  It's an intense film that has all the earmarks of greatness, and becomes an important film to see due to its strictly humanistic look at a debilitating disease that affects millions of people every day.

The Summary:
With two acclaimed actors at the helm, "Ben is Back" is a jarring look at drug addiction and how it affects the entire family, while also serving as a thrilling mystery that keeps the anxiety and anticipation hyped from start to finish.

The Score: A+