Ben Is Back is emblematic of everything that is wrong with American society and American filmmaking. Obviously I didn’t know that I would hate this movie when I decided to watch it. I saw the previews in the theaters and resolved to see it at home because even if I’m moved, I’m always slightly salty and arms crossed when it is a movie about a person suffering from the opioid crisis because of the disparate ways that people treat the individual based on race. Brown equals lack of character and criminal, but white means our children need help, and they’re victims.
Ben Is Back stars Julia Roberts and unfolds during Christmas when mom’s son from her first marriage appears home. We know that something is up because his sister is less jubilant than mom to see him so we doubt that he got out of rehab properly. Either way, mom decides that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to stay the night then return after the holidays are over. There is already enough drama if he got out of rehab under less dubious circumstances and was just trying to adjust to a less regulated life in a place where he first began his descent, but this film is American, and we don’t trust quiet character studies, a simple story and solid acting, which there is plenty of, and the actors cannot be blamed except for accepting this job.
Ben Is Back’s mother as a character is a child. I actually hated the way that she was written. We’re supposed to like her because Roberts plays her, but in case that was not enough to tip the scales in her favor, she also has a second husband, who is played by Angela Bassett’s husband, and two adorable biracial children to keep at bay any accusations of being selfish and entitled except it does not work because just having black people that you love in your life does not mean that you still aren’t those things, or that you’re inherently good. You can know about inequities and still benefit from them. There is even a scene during the movie in which the characters explicitly concede that Ben is lucky to get the breaks that he has because if he wasn’t white, he would be in jail yet I’m supposed to feel bad because mom didn’t additionally get a Christmas with her son even though apparently this is the third failed attempt at celebrating with the entire family. The movie kind of promulgates the idea that a bogus expectation of what holiday should look like shared by the delusional mother and son is prioritized over his actual health and the entire family’s stability and psychological health.
It irritated me that the mom promises never to let him out of her sight yet does it repeatedly throughout Ben Is Back and fairly early in the proceedings. The movie questions whether she is his jailer or his family, and if you have to ask the question, then send him back to rehab and make this film a short one. He basically sets the agenda, mom enables him, and everyone gets swept along for the ride. By the way, Ben’s lies aren’t even convincing in the film so the movie makes the characters seem stupid to be willing to play his game, especially since it is not their first rodeo. There are plausible ways to depict how a family could end up enabling a beloved person who is also an addict, but the film insults our intelligence from the start.
Well, apparently Ben Is Back was not confident enough with the drama inherent in what they already set up because the tension of having an addict lie to you during the holidays apparently needed to be spiced up by someone with a grudge kidnapping the family dog. Yes, I just spoiled it without warning you for your own good. Do not see this film! Mother and son now have a contrived reason to be isolated from everyone else and go down memory alley, explore the seedy underbelly of her suburban neighborhood and confront her son’s disreputable past. The prodigal son’s father never did so much. The mother gets to prove her love by doggedly pursuing her son to insure that he does not relapse as he investigates the leads like they’re amateur detectives, which is inherently absurd. It is all about her, not the pain of the person who actually lived it. The dog is fine, but it is such a disgustingly manipulative narrative device used to explore his past while centering his mother’s pain, not his, as she realizes what her son has been through and is horrified every step of the way because apparently she was born yesterday and had no idea before now in spite of a number of relapses before this film even starts. For real? I don’t know your kid, and I know what happened.
On one hand, I admire that Ben Is Back tried to find a new way to tell a story without it being chronological and fall into rote, expected patterns depicting a person falling into addiction, hitting rock bottom then struggling to emerge from the pit, but on the other hand, the whole set up is sleazy and gross. To make a personal drama into a low key crime thriller just insults the viewer’s intelligence as if the filmmakers didn’t trust that their viewers wouldn’t stay drawn in to the personal interplay in the family that it needed to be sensationalized. Side note: do drug dealers trust drug addicts to transport their drugs because it seems like a poor business plan? I would love for a movie to explore what it is like to see someone almost overdose repeatedly and still love them unconditionally enough to fight for them while simultaneously knowing that the odds are against them. Unfortunately this movie isn’t that movie.
Also it is possible for Ben Is Back to have a main character that isn’t likeable, is self-centered and selfish and still be a good movie, but the problem is that I don’t think the filmmakers see her that way because most of the characters respond to her behavior as if it was appropriate. There is another mother who is a foil for Roberts’ character, but she lost her child to drugs. If this woman acted like Ben’s mom, she would have been annoyed by constantly being drawn into Ben’s life, which could be triggering for her, and lashed out at Ben’s mom for getting in her face. Instead, even though it is clear that these two women are not close, she is not only welcoming, but she is ride or die as if Ben is her kid, and I didn’t buy for a second that she wouldn’t mind such a huge imposition. Does it pass the Bechdel test if women are talking about a man that they aren’t romantically involved with?
Maybe you question whether or not the central character in Ben Is Back is as awful as I claim. It is human to spit venom in a senile old man’s ear if he got your son hooked on drugs so maybe I can excuse elder abuse given the context. I was just puzzled when she kept Ben’s stash nearby, but it came in handy when she used those drugs in exchange for information from someone else’s son. There is never a moment of empathy recognizing that others are also experiencing her pain. She doesn’t think of that person’s mother. It is right because it is her son, and SHE WILL DO ANYTHING TO SAVE HIM. Except, you know, drive his ass back to rehab at the beginning of the movie. Also the parentification of her daughter, which is a form of child abuse, and lying to her husband were enough to lose favor with me.
Ben Is Back is an afterschool special geared towards parents, a misguided social guidance film exploiting the imaginations of parents concerned about what he or she would do if a beloved child falls into the trap of addiction. It should not have been set during Christmas. It should have been set on Mother’s Day since this film is obsessed with the inherent life-giving qualities of being a mother and elevates her selfishness as an admirable trait instead of stupidity. I hope that Beautiful Boy is better.