Exploring healing through puppetry

Some days it seems like everybody needs a prescription puppet. Oh, but that’s just one of the caveats in the story of Walter Black and his family. Directed by Jodie Foster, The Beaver is a briefing for a descent into the madness known as depressive psychosis.

Walter Black is a wreck. By that I mean the lead character, played by a very unhealthy and elderly-looking Mel Gibson, is utterly depressed. Plagued by countless demons, Walter was once a successful toy executive and family man, but no matter what he’s tried – prescription drugs, New Age techniques, psychotherapy -- he just can’t seem to get motivated to do anything but sleep. Unusually enough it is this same brand of madness that rescues him from the brink of self destruction. It all comes to a head in a third storey hotel room, with hard liquor and a botched attempt at becoming pavement dirt. This is when the Beaver hand puppet enters his life. “Walter Black, the central character, is someone who has hit absolute rock bottom," says producer Steve Golin in the production notes for the film. “He’s gotten to a place where he has no coping mechanism left." The Beaver is exactly what the term implies: a scruffy hand puppet that’s definitely seen better days. It’s cute if you consider Rolf the Dog (of The Muppets) in his doddering twilight years cute. When Walter first finds it in a dumpster outside a liquor store it’s also full of grime and dust. For some reason, before his ill-considered attempt at becoming a jumper, he winds up wearing it on his left arm. After waking up from his suicide attempt, he emerges from what seemed like terminal torpor and begins speaking tough love, spewing out sage advice through the puppet in a heavy Australian accent. It all works out at the start. Through the puppet, Walter is offered a virtual personality reset button. He uses this to reconnect with his alienated family: his wife Meredith (played by Jodie Foster), and his sons Porter and the seven-year old Henry. Walter begins to turn his life around and revives the fortunes of his ailing toy company. But making your way through life with what Walter calls a “prescription puppet" all comes at a price, of course. The Beaver examines the ecology of the split personality in the mold of similar movies like Fight Club, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Rain Man. However, it differs from its brethren by being an unflinching look at how the condition affects those around it in all its comedy and high drama. Such an extreme situation offers much of both. Plus, it never resorts to CGI, animation or Hollywood visual trickery to illustrate the manifestations of its peculiar insanity. Nope, it’s just a scruffy puppet and Mel Gibson’s two-time Academy Award winning acting chops. “Walter Black and the Beaver had to be somebody who could fully understand and communicate comedy and tragedy at the same time," says director Foster. “I’ve been friends with Mel for over 15 years and we’ve had many, many long discussions about life and so it was a natural place to go." Because it is such a richly layered and extremely emotional movie, it’s really the impact of the Beaver personality juxtaposed with family life that carries this film through its many odd moments. For this, Hollywood newbie Kyle Killen’s script is to be praised. It relishes the pain and quiet triumphs found in the dynamics of a family in the grip of such an eccentric, volatile situation. A definite scene stealer is the side story of Porter, Walter’s teenage son played by Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin, and his left field high school romance with the gorgeous and popular cheerleader Norah, played by Jennifer Lawrence from X-Men: First Class. Norah is the future school valedictorian who asks Porter to write her graduation speech. “The Beaver supplies a missing link," says Mel Gibson in the production notes. “He has a spokesperson, a buffer for what’s clearly been going wrong for so long—a middle man who can be charming and express things that he perhaps can’t." Without spoiling it for future viewers, one of the hardest things to watch involves Walter dressing up in a slick suit and tie to face the whole staff of the toy company he left in near ruin during the throes of his depression. He then proceeds to make executive level changes by talking through the Beaver. If you like family dramas that aren’t of the typical trivial Hollywood fare, then The Beaver might just show you how diving into the rabbit hole of the mind can become a depressed person's salvation. - YA/HS, GMA News The Beaver opens August 10 and will be shown exclusively at Ayala Mall cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and Trinoma). Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.