Avis des critiques

It's no surprise to me that people actually prefer talking to the puppet than to Mel Gibson, yet this doesn't make the film any more bearable. Directed by Jodie Foster, it is the very essence of a misfire, a film so out of step with the times that I'm tempted to say Dick Cheney on a hunting trip couldn't have misfired more.

I'm afraid this bizarre comedy drama about a mental crack-up is not going to stamp out the fires Mel Gibson has lit beneath his career. It isn't offensive, or antisemitic, or actionable, so there's some relief – but it is very embarrassing.

[C]ontrived, self-admiring and self-pitying, unfunny, burdened with a central performance which is unendurably conceited and charmless.

Yelchin and his newfound girlfriend, Norah (Lawrence, who is as moving here as she was in Winter’s Bone), lend heart to the movie, and although Gibson’s performance is spotless, it’s virtually impossible to not conflate the actor’s offscreen notoriety with his onscreen portrait of a deeply troubled man. Foster commendably stretches beyond her comfort zone with The Beaver, but in the end the film’s high-concept premise is at war with its conventional direction.

Gibson does not give a bad performance. In his own morose way, he is very effective at portraying a depressed white-collar businessman whose life is unravelling around him. The problem is Gibson has no lightness and no charm. An added problem is that Foster's movie is caught in a netherworld between comedy and dark, dysfunctional family drama. We never know whether she is trying to make us laugh or provide us with a case study of mental illness.

Rather than inspiring anything more biting, comic or clever, Gibson’s upstaging co-star, the puppet, ends up being a catalyst for sentimental family reconstruction and big hugs all round. Beyond the initial idea, this is kid gloves filmmaking, when what we need is a bit more of the gloves-off stuff.

I won’t say thatThe Beaver... is good enough that diehard Gibson boycotters should compromise their values to see it. But if you continue to be fascinated by this talented, volatile, messed-up man—if your Mel curiosity hasn’t been completely squelched by your Mel disgust—it’s worth experiencing what may be Gibson’s finest performance to date.

There are all kinds of problems with “The Beaver.” Ironically, Mel Gibson isn’t one of them. So for those inclined to set aside the actor’s alcoholic, anti-Semitic rants and his no-contest plea to domestic abuse (and I’m not arguing for that), there is a sensitive performance to be found, with Gibson creating a sad, sobering portrait of depression.

It took some courage on the part of Jodie Foster to direct this film. I believes she knows Gibson's good side and respects his talent. He was certainly the right choice for this material.

Despite a ludicrous set-up based around one of the most outlandish performances of Mel Gibson’s career, “The Beaver” is a tame, leisurely drama that neither provides the beleaguered actor with decisive comeback material nor further muddies his tarnished image. As directed by Jodie Foster from the screenplay by first-timer Kyle Killen, the story takes an irreverent plot and makes it uniformly familiar, if not entirely unpleasant.

The Gibson-centered plot crams in too many ideas that are fumbled and quickly dropped... The kind of Therapy for Dummies speechifying ladled over the teenagers’ scenes, counterpointed to allegedly transgressive effect by the schizoid comedy, is becoming a lazy new indie formula, replacing the rhythms and depths of demanding adult drama.

Despite its bizarro-world trappings, Kyle Killen’s script is a tidy problem drama exploring the nature of psychological defense mechanisms.