Honey Boy is a 2019 American drama film directed by Alma Har'el (in her narrative feature directorial debut) with a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, loosely based on his childhood and his relationship with his father. The film stars LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges, Noah Jupe and FKA twigs.
LaBeouf originally wrote the script as a form of therapy while in rehab. The project was announced in March 2018, and the cast was filled out over the next two months. Filming took place in Los Angeles over the course of about three weeks.
Honey Boy had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2019 and was released on November 8, 2019, by Amazon Studios. The film received largely positive reviews from critics, who praised Har'el's direction as well as the performances of LaBeouf, Hedges and Jupe.
Plot
In 2005, Otis Lort is a movie star who suffers from alcoholism. He crashes his car and gets into a drunken altercation with the police and is forced to go into rehabilitation.
Dr. Moreno, Otis' counselor, tells him that if he leaves the facility before they say he is ready, the court will send him to prison for his violent offenses. Moreno tells Otis that he has PTSD, which he denies repeatedly, but she encourages him to look into his past through exposure therapy.
Going back a decade earlier to 1995, Otis remembers working as a child actor, often accompanied on set by his father James, a former rodeo clown. James is four years sober but clearly on edge, manic and aggressive. The two live in a meager motel complex where a shy young woman lives across from them. Otis is in the Big Brother program at the behest of his mother, despite James's jealousy. Otis wants to go to a baseball game with Tom from the program, and James agrees if Tom comes over for a barbecue.
In 2005, Otis is shown communicating with his roommate Percy and continues therapy. He resists the process, finding it unhelpful. Returning to his memories, Otis remembers Tom coming over for the barbecue along with James throwing him into the pool and violently threatening him. When he is offered a part in a movie that will be shot in Canada, Otis calls his mother, who is unsure if James can accompany him because of his status as a registered sex offender. This causes James to begin screaming at her via Otis, who has to relay both of his parents' arguments back to each other.
In the present, after resisting therapy yet again, Otis' counselor Alec advises him to go into the woods and scream as loud as he can. James is then shown attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where he talks about his abusive stepmother, how he got into substance abuse, and while blacked out attempted to rape a woman which got him registered as a sex offender. Alone in his room, Otis spends time with the Shy Girl where the two cuddle and he gives her money.
James forces Otis with the rehearsal of his scenes over and over again, and he stops to scream at the neighbors for being too loud. Otis asks him to stop and tells him that no one else would hire him due to his status as a sex offender, and that Otis is actually in charge since James is making money off of him. In 2005, Otis thanks Alec for the advice, and continues to work with Dr. Moreno on controlling his anger.
In 1995, Otis finally confronts James and tells him he needs to start being a better father. A furious James hits him, then leaves on his motorcycle to acquire drugs at a strip club. Alone, Otis spends time with the Shy Girl, and the two are caught waking up together the next morning by James. The Shy Girl slaps James and leaves, and James asks Otis how he thinks it would feel to be criticized by his own son, and to have to resort to accepting payment from him. Otis tells James that if he did not receive money, James would not be present.
James takes Otis to a patch of marijuana plants he has been growing off the highway and smokes cannabis with him. Back in the present, Otis revisits the motel, and imagines himself finding his father there in his rodeo clown costume. He tells his father he intends to make a movie about him; James asks him to make him look good. The two ride away on James's motorcycle, which fades into Otis riding away alone.