Being Charlie

The result is a film so personal you watch transfixed, caught up in a life that is constantly enthralling, with a universal appeal that extends beyond the exclusive Hills of Beverly.

Being Charlie is far from a home run, but it’s the kind of solidly struck single after a string of strikeouts that can be just the thing to help set a veteran back on track.

The narrative feels undercooked, its life lessons just a bit too glib.

Many a road to movie hell is paved with good intentions. To that list of lost causes add Being Charlie, a well-meaning study of addiction that hits too many banal beats to snap us to attention.

But being Charlie – what’s going on inside this angry kid’s head, what made him turn to drugs, and finally turn away – that is more elusive. And that is the film’s great disappointment: that something so clearly conceived in earnestness and from real-life, first-person experience ends up feeling, well, kinda fake.

If Charlie were just unlikable, it all might be palatable and even fun. But his behavior draws more of an eye-roll than a laugh or a snarl, despite Robinson's confident, believable performance.

Most of the film's characters are unconvincing, flattened out by Charlie's self-focused lens.

When legendary Director, Rob Reiner, decided to direct this independent film, it was supposed to be a unique, inside look at what young people face on the road to recovery. Charlie Mills (Nick Robinson) is a young drug addict, who is going into rehab for the first time. Like most young people, he thinks it's a joke, until he meets the other people are hears their stories. Ultimately Charlie decides to be strong for his new friends and love interest, but being Charlie isn't so easy when temptation is everywhere. You can see from the beginning of the film that this is supposed to be some kind of a wake up call to addicts, but as someone whose had very close people in his life who suffer from the disease, I can tell you that much of this film was inaccurate. Rehab is portrayed as this wonderful place, that looks like a hotel, and has people with hearts of gold. They all have their own sad stories, but they are all good people now, just looking to get better. This is far from the way it is. As the story progressed, it basically went from a story of addiction into a love story, with addiction being an after thought, until the very end. Nick Robinson stars and he's the reason I made it through the whole film. This kid is absolutely terrific, especially in these types of roles. Kings of Summer was his breakout performance and a tremendous film. Being Charlie was an equally great performance, however it was a film that's lacking direction and almost misses the point. I liked what they were going for in the film and the cast was top notch, but the problem was that it wasn't realistic enough and couldn't decide weather or not it wanted to be a film about recovery, a love story, or simply a deep look into Charlie's life. The bottom line, it was a great performance wasted in a slow moving, unrealistic story.