For someone whose smile is insured for $30 million, Julia Roberts is often glum on screen, consciously pushing back against the stereotype that she’s only persuasive in cheery rom-coms. But in too many dramatic roles—Secret in Their Eyes, August: Osage County, Closer—the gifted actress overcompensates, throttling down her charisma so severely, only an empty shell remains. So it’s gratifying to see Roberts deliver as rich and complete a performance as she gives in Ben Is Back, where she plays Holly, a woman who’s simultaneously elated and terrified. The source of Holly’s joy and fear is the return of—sorry, no points for guessing—Ben (Lucas Hedges), her son, a born charmer who is also a drug addict.
Written and directed by Peter Hedges (Lucas’ father), Ben Is Back is intimate in scale and scope, taking place over a single Christmas Eve when Ben unexpectedly arrives home from rehab. The elder Hedges is stingy with exposition, preferring to quietly observe how this idyllic family—Holly has remarried to Neal (Courtney B. Vance), and they live in a handsome town in Upstate New York—has its happy balance upset by the sudden return of its prodigal son. Holly and Neal’s two cherubic kids are thrilled to have Ben back, but Neal and Ivy, Ben’s sister from Holly’s first marriage (Kathryn Newton, excellent), are more apprehensive, and the movie gestures at the collateral damage that addiction can inflict on a junkie’s loved ones. In a number of sharply detailed scenes, including a would-be meet-cute at an NA meeting and a playful-turned-harrowing outing at the mall, Ben Is Back illustrates how the threat of relapse is omnipresent, and how that specter of dread informs every moment not just of Ben’s existence, but of Holly’s as well; Roberts, through anxious laughs and pursed lips, communicates just how taxing it can be for a mother to want to trust her son while constantly reckoning with the potential fallout of that trust.
The first half of Ben Is Back is exquisitely perched at this tipping point between devotion and trepidation. So it’s a shame that the movie eventually succumbs to temptation, turning into a ghoulish suspense thriller; a dog disappears, a search ensues, and before long Holly is tracking quarry via GPS and peering fretfully into dumpsters. It’s still reasonably compelling, but it lacks the emotional complexity of what comes before, resulting in something of a comedown. Still, Roberts’ commitment to the material is total (as is Newton’s—she cracks your heart open in just a handful of scenes), and even if she indulges in some mild overacting near the end, you can’t quarrel with her sincerity, suppressed smile and all. Ben may indeed be back, but it’s Roberts’ return to form that’s worth celebrating.
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.