Honey Boy

From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father through cinema and dreams. Fictionalising his childhood’s ascent to stardom, and subsequent adult crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Har’el casts Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges as Otis Lort, navigating different stages in a frenetic career.

LaBeouf takes on the daring and therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Artist and musician FKA twigs makes her feature-film debut, playing neighbour and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as therapy and imagination as hope.

Critic Reviews:

• " The movie feels very raw. LaBeouf's voice is very unfiltered through this movie… You can tell that he's working through things as he writes the movie. " – Moira MacDonald

• " Is quite remarkable in its softness, in its emotion, and in [Shia LaBeouf's] heartfelt manner in showing his dad the type of love he deserved when he needed it the most. " – Paul Byrnes

• " Honey Boy is an equally unsettling and dreamlike portrait of an artist and their journey throughout life. " – David Stratton