Ticketworthy! - The Unbreakable Boy

There are going to be people who enjoy The Unbreakable Boy regardless of any flaws it may have or anyone else’s opinion of it. It’s a heartfelt family-oriented story, based on the real-life of Scott LeRette and his autistic son Austin, tinged messaging about personal growth. For some people, the concept of the movie is going to be enough for them to want to see it. It’s made for them. It’s just a shame that it’s not made terribly well and has all the subtlety of a jackhammer.

That’s not to say there aren’t some good things about it, of course. The story of a family navigating the trials of having an extremely autistic son who also has brittle bones is certainly interesting enough to justify a movie, even if basically every part of it has been done before. There are great performances, notably Jacob Laval as Austin and Meghann Fahy as Scott’s wife and Austin’s mother, Teresa. Laval clearly throws everything he has into Austin and is genuinely funny and charming. I wouldn’t say the character, or his arc, is particularly original, but Laval elevates the material well. To me though, the standout star of this film is Fahy, who is captivating as a woman who is pushed nearly to the breaking point by struggles she’s not sure she can overcome. 

If I was pitching this movie, I’d have made Teresa the main character. Her journey is the most engaging part of the plot. She also grew up with brittle-bones disease, and so feels a little bit of guilt for passing it on to her already challenged son. At the same time, she has to navigate those challenges and also her husband’s alcoholism, while managing the house and caring for the couple’s non-autistic child as well. It’s a huge burden and it all seems to fall squarely on Teresa’s shoulders. Fahy delivers an outstanding performance, equal parts inspiring and heartbreaking, as we get to see Teresa at her strongest and also completely broken down. If The Unbreakable Boy had the sense to focus the story on her, it could have been much better.

However, it chooses instead to focus on Scott, played by Zachary Levi, instead. Levi is...fine. Scott’s an alcoholic (you can tell because there’s almost not a shot in the first half of the movie where he isn’t drinking) and feels the weight of not knowing how to be a good father and husband to his rather unique family. Levi doesn’t really inject any passion into the role, though the moments when he’s being lighthearted are sort of fun. Mostly though, he’s just going through the motions. He’s not helped at all by a stunningly bland script that seems to be just checking boxes on some kind of “Inspiration Movie” checklist. The dialogue is also flat at the best of times. More than once during the film I thought, “Who talks like that?”

Finally, the directing is simply weak. There’s no other way to say it. Director Jon Gunn tries to interject levity and a message into the film but fails at almost every turn. Most of the jokes fall flat, except those delivered by Fahy, and the message is all over the place. “Accept responsibility for your actions and step up” seems to be the prevailing theme, though Scott spends literally the whole film doing that. He even immediately stops drinking when he goes too far and apparently doesn’t really struggle at all with it. At least, not that we see. Better direction might have spent some more time on that, tried to get a more meaningful performance out of Levi, but Gunn chooses to blow right by it.

As I said, there’s going to be plenty of people who like this movie for what it’s trying to be, and I know full well that it was made for them and not for me. I accept that. That said, there are too many flaws and weaknesses in the story, the writing, the directing, even the cinematography, for me to recommend it. It’s an uninspired hodgepodge of ideas from better movies held together by a couple of shockingly good performances. That’s not out of the normal for this style of film (or this Director), but it is disappointing because it feels like with a few tweaks, it could have been quite good. As it is, the boy may be unbreakable, but the move is very broken.