Ben Is Back | Film Review

I had been waiting for this movie to come out for such a long time (I'm a HUGE fan of Lucas Hedges) and it's finally out in the UK! Go see this in the cinema if you get the chance.

It's Christmas Eve when Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) returns to his family home after being in rehab. His mum, Holly (Julia Roberts), is extremely happy to see him, but due to the concerns of the rest of the family, decides that he is only allowed to stay in the family home for 24 hours, before going back to rehab the next day. However, for the 24 hours that Ben is home, nothing is simple. Holly does everything she can to offer her son unconditional love and support, while also trying to keep him off drugs. But when success could result in Ben hating her, and failure could result in his death, will this mother with no more options make the right choices?

I really enjoyed this film.

As mentioned in my description, the first thing you notice about the film is the unconditional love of a mother. Even when every other family member is extremely wary of the return of this drug addict, Holly Burns can separate the idea of a drug addict from the idea of the son that she loves more than anything. Whether this is a good approach to deal with addiction, I don't know. But it certainly tells you a lot about her as a character.

The thing about this film is, the fact that there are so many people wary of Ben immediately puts you on his side, or at least, it did for me. I instantly sympathised with him and wanted him to succeed, just because other people in the family thought that he wouldn't.
Having said this, the film is amazing at creating tension. The whole way through, you can never quite relax because, like Holly, you sense that things are about to go wrong, and he might relapse.

One of the other things that I noticed about the film was that it contained the perfect way to introduce religion into a film. More than anything, it was used as an undertone, and did not make the film 'about' religion in any way. It didn't take anything away from the film, and the little pieces of worship that we saw just taught us more about the family, and about Ben's upbringing.

Although the subject matter is extremely heavy, the film itself finds a way of not dropping all of the heavy issues onto the audience's shoulders. It's by no means a light or fun film, but it's also not distressing or overpowering. You can enjoy it as escapism and still take something important from it.

Lastly, I have to talk about the amazing acting in this film. Every single actor that made up this small cast was amazing and extremely integral to the story, but in particular, Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges were utterly stunning in these roles, and had the perfect chemistry to play mother and son.

Overall, if I haven't made it clear enough, I think that this is an important, yet extremely entertaining film. It comes out in the UK today, so go and see it!

7/10

Lou