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Once one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Shia LaBeouf has since been lost in obscurity. He’s been working hard for a comeback though, and Amazon Studios has just released the first trailer for LaBeouf’s semi-autobiographical film, Honey Boy.
What’s interesting is that the film will have LaBeouf playing his own father, and will chronicle the complicated relationship they had as LaBeouf’s celebrity grew. The role of Otis Lort is a stand-in for LeBeouf, and you can see that there are already references from his time working on Even Stevens to Transformers.
With LaBeouf undergoing a rise and fall, it’s very interesting to see just how experimental and wacky he can get as he tries to hone his art. From holding a movie marathon of his films where people get to watch him react to himself, this looks to be an interesting film where LaBeouf can hone in one his dysfunctional relationship with his dad—something I’m sure a lot of us can relate to.
And speaking of weird LaBeouf projects, this just feels like it has to be called back to:
From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach, LoveTrue) brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health. Fictionalizing his ascent to stardom, and subsequent crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Har’el casts Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) and Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased, Manchester by the Sea) as Otis Lort, navigating different stages in a frenetic career. LaBeouf takes on the therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Dancer-singer FKA twigs makes her feature-film debut, playing neighbor and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as medicine and imagination as hope through the life and times of a talented, traumatized performer who dares to go in search of himself.
Honey Boy is set to come out in Nov. 8.
