Ben is Back (2018)

The second high profile film in 2018 to focus on a parent struggling with the reality that they cannot help their addicted child (after Beautiful Boy), much of Ben is Back follows similar themes. Unlike that film this one is fiction and takes place over the course of one day. Like that film it features a movie star and a rising star both making powerful performances.

Julia Roberts seems interested in just making these sorts of pictures now. She certainly doesn't have anything to prove and instead she can just pick the roles that interest her. In Ben is Back she finds a meaty role right up her alley and she delivers, being the everymom at the end of her rope, slowly coming to the realization that there is nothing she can do, but doing it anyway.

Lucas Hedges is making a strong name for himself by taking on these difficult roles and doing a great, understated job. Here as the conflicted addict he gets us to see just how much he wants to both return to his life of drugs and wants to erase it. Directed by his father opposite one of the world's biggest stars, he holds his own and gives another quality role.

I liked how the film focused on just one day, one moment in what is a perilous and devastating journey. It is just a moment for these two survivors and it doesn't give us the hopeful ending we would want, it gives us no catharsis, not even the tragic kind. Instead it gives us a very honest day in the life.

Ben is Back
Starring: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance, Katherine Newton
Writer/Director: Peter Hedges