Film File - The Beaver

Could Mel Gibson ever recover his acting career? That was the question occupying Hollywood last year after the Aussie's anti-Semitic outbursts rendered him just about as toxic as you can get in Tinseltown - and that's seriously toxic. But nobody could deny Mel wasn't a great actor and filmmaker, as any Irish person connected with the multi-Oscar winning 'Braveheart' will attest, and it was always likely some form of salvation would present itself. Everybody figured it would be another quasi-religious tract like 'Apocalypto' or 'The Passion Of The Christ' he'd opt for, but it wasn't anything like that. Directed by and co-starring Jodie Foster, 'The Beaver' is about as far as the repentant Aussie could possibly get from his trusted blood and guts preferences. The plot concerns Walter Black (Gibson), a man suffering from extreme depression. As he spends most of his days sleeping or trying different methods of self-therapy, his wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) hides behind work and watches helpless as her husband falls apart. The children are similarly affected with their youngest son, Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart), becoming a virtual hermit, and his elder brother, Porter (Anton Yelchin), writing classmates' essays for cash while secretly keeping a list of similarities between him and his father so as to avoid a similar future. What with all that sleeping, Walter's toy company business is also understandably heading toward bankruptcy. He finally hits rock bottom when Meredith kicks him out of the house, and he determines to get drunk and kill himself. The suicide attempt goes awry, and upon waking up, Walter finds himself chatting to the Beaver - a puppet he found in a rubbish skip during his drinking binge - and who now speaks to him in a British accent. With the help of the Beaver, who quickly becomes the driver of his personality, Walter starts to get it all together again - reconnecting with Henry through a woodworking hobby, romancing back Meredith, and reviving the fortunes of his toy company. The trouble is that it's not really Walter who is doing this, but rather his increasingly dominant alter ego, the Beaver. Porter is the only one who sees what's really happening to his father and instead continues adding to his list and working on a graduation speech for popular cheerleader Norah (Jennifer Lawrence). In jig time, the Beaver takes complete control of Walter, eventually driving Meredith and Porter away. On the business side, though, hand puppets explode in popularity and the toy company thrives. About 30 minutes into this one, a 1978 film, 'Magic', slowly dawned from the mists of time. Magician Corky Withers, played by a very young Anthony Hopkins, gets a new ventriloquist dummy called Fats to improve his act - a move that sees his popularity skyrocket. However, Fats has a nasty mind of his own and wants to control his master - and therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare might have said. So it is with 'The Beaver', a film that is absorbing, unusual and, for those of us who can recall 1978, a mirror image in theme to another that went before. Given that it's been 16 years since Foster directed a film, this is, at first glance, a very unusual proposition. Add to that Gibson's toxic status with much of the film community, and it becomes an uncanny role choice for a man who needs to redeem himself in the eyes of the world. All of that being said, this one does hold the attention, not least because of its unusual concept - and is one that Gibson, in the able hands of Foster as director, manages very well. With Michael Caine excellent as the smarmy voice of The Beaver, the emotional territory the Aussie undertakes here is quite similar to his forgettable rom-com 'What Women Want' a few years back - but with much more emotional punch. Gibson can still act, that's for sure, and those extra lines on his forehead speak volumes for the dark personal places he's been over the last year. 'The Beaver' is no 'Mad Max' or Mad Mel, but a thought-provoking piece of strangeness that will have you chatting about it long after the final credits roll.