The Beaver focuses in part on the love triangle among a depressed man (Mel Gibson), his wife (Jodie Foster) and his favorite puppet. (
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Mad Mel Gibson, as a depressed man struggling with serious mental problems, grabs your attention like a car wreck in Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver.” This bizarre little movie is all over the place as drama — but genuinely compelling as a one-of-a-kind piece of public self-flagellation.
It’s impossible to watch Gibson’s superb performance as a troubled man who employs a hand puppet for a most peculiar kind of self-help without wondering how much it’s informed by his well-publicized personal demons (see Gibson timeline on page 40).
Even as Kyle Killen’s script becomes ever more implausible and ultimately ridiculous, it’s impossible to take your eyes off the screen when the tortured and ill-looking Gibson is center stage.
He’s Walter Black, the “hopelessly depressed” CEO of a toy company on the verge of bankruptcy. During the rare moments when he isn’t actually asleep, Walter is a walking zombie.
His fed-up wife, Meredith (Foster), is particularly concerned about the toll that Walter’s two-year journey to the dark side is taking on their teenage son, Porter (Anton Yelchin), and his younger brother, (Riley Thomas Stewart).
Exiled to a motel, Walter stops on the way to buy out a liquor store — one of many touches that will have you thinking about Gibson’s tabloid exploits — and impulsively fishes a ratty beaver hand puppet from a Dumpster outside.
That night, our boozy hero makes a couple of abortive suicide attempts — the second interrupted by the Cockney-accented voice of the puppet (Gibson, sounding not a little like Michael Caine).
Coming to after a fall, Walter receives a pep talk from The Beaver, who he manipulates on his hand and speaks through. Suddenly, Walter is sort of his old perky self — though he lets his alter ego, who he identifies in printed cards he hands out as a “prescription puppet,” do most of the talking.
His wife, delighted with Walter’s new demeanor, goes along — to a point. A model of co-dependency, she welcomes him home, even though she finds sharing their bed with The Beaver a bit weird.
It’s more problematic when she insists on an anniversary celebration without The Beaver — this scene may be the best acting that Gibson has done in his entire career. It’s also one of the few scenes where Gibson speaks in something like his own voice rather than The Beaver’s cockney twang.
Even stranger is Walter’s return to work, where he introduces The Beaver — who proposes a new, beaver-themed woodworking kit that turns the company around.
It’s possible at first to accept this as a surreal comedy in the vein of “Lars and the Real Girl,” another film in which people go along with the lead character’s delusions.
Unfortunately, director Foster lets the tone shift during the too-long periods when the movie focuses on Walter’s older son, who despises his father.
Even though much of this seems like generic teen angst, it forces you to consider Walter’s behavior in a more realistic context.
Wouldn’t the wife get Walter committed soon after he showed up with The Beaver? Would his employees really obey orders from a hand puppet?
Gibson’s deeply committed performance helps get you past this, but only so far. Until Foster and Killen come up with a climax that doesn’t work. At. All.
I’m not sure that “The Beaver” is going to change people’s minds about Gibson, whose anti-Semitic, racist and misogynistic outbursts are all-too-well documented. Foster has certainly provided him with a unique mea culpa — and one of the most unusual comebacks in Hollywood history.
lou.lumenick@nypost.com