If anyone would ask you about the importance of indie film distributors, I'll offer up Oscar Boyson's WG Pictures release Our Hero, Balthazar as exhibit A as to why the world is a better place with the world of indie cinema.
There's not a wide-release distributor, I'm quite comfortable saying, that would even considering a film with the log-line that follows - To impress a girl, a wealthy teenager who makes videos about the horrors of gun violence for social media validation, attempts to stop a school shooting by traveling to Texas and becoming friends with the would be shooter.
Harrowing.
And yet, against almost all odds, Boyson pulls it off. Our Hero, Balthazar is far more than a film made simply for shock value. It's a remarkably insightful, empathetic, and dare I say quite touching examination of such topics as toxic masculinity, wealth equity, obsession with violence, and our constant immersion in social media.
Jaeden Martell (Arcadian) is disturbing from the get-go as the title character, a young man of affluence whose mother (Jennifer Ehle) bathes him in the benefits of being rich including affording him his own life coach (Noah Centineo, Warfare). Balthazar is a bored easily rich dude who obsesses on a classmate, Eleanor (Pippa Knowles), who mostly ignores him and spends a good amount of his free time practicing his "gift" of producing crocodile tears into his livestreams begging for stricter gun laws that he doesn't actually seem to care about. Watching Martell lean every cell of his being into being Balthazar astounds and disturbs.
Balthazar is not the kind of character whom it seems would draw you in and hold your attention, however, Martell's portrayal is so devastatingly smart and the script by Boyson and Ricky Camilleri is so layered and intelligent that you absolutely cannot turn away.
It is during such a stream that Balthazar is DM'd by a stranger, whom we will soon know as Solomon (a stunning Asa Butterfield, Hugo, Sex Education), with a claim that he plans to shoot up a nearby school and taunting footage of just such a shooting. Fascinated, Balthazar heads to Texas to meet his potential mass murderer.
It is a strange film indeed when you come across a film where a potential mass murderer is the empathetic one, but here you have it. I've been following Butterfield's career since his second credit, Son of Rambow, played at my hometown Heartland Film Festival and really fell in love when another film of his, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, screened at the same festival the following year.
This is a previously unseen Butterfield, a chaotic array of character levels personifying this British actor with a heavy Texan accent and nary a friend to be found. When you toss in an obsession with guns, it feels as if we have a monster already born and just waiting for the right moment to destroy.
In the wrong hands, Our Hero, Balthazar could have gone horribly wrong. Boyson, who produced the Safdie's Good Time and Uncut Gems, somehow never lets it go wrong. We become engrossed by Solomon's trailer park life with a ritually abusive father (Chris Bauer) and an ailing grandmother (Becky Ann Baker, another film highlight).
We ask ourselves over and over and over again. Is Solomon just a troubled soul or he is a killer? It's that unknowing that drive's the film's narrative tension, though we're equally worked up with how Balthazar's growing presence will influence the entire situation.
It's worth noting that Our Hero, Balthazar is a surprisingly funny film. It's a bold, courageous choiceo by Byson and Camilleri to weave into the film's tapestry a consistent thread of dark humor with even a few moments of sentimentality. How the film unfolds is certainly not to be stated here, however, there's something brilliant and jarring about how it all unfolds and what we come to expect and experience with both characters and the worlds in which they live.
The need for connection radiates throughout Our Hero, Balthazar. There's a pervasive loneliness that drives much of the story, a sense that at least one of these young men could be reachable if only.
If only.
Our Hero, Balthazar isn't an easy film to watch but once you start watching it I'll practically dare you to stop. The film is a satirical yet precise exploration of issues impacting America these days and an awful lot of what happens here is going to feel familiar.
The script is sublime. The direction is perceptive and razor sharp. The ensemble is an absolute stunner. Original music by James William Blades is used to carry the film's emotional rhythms, while Erin DeWitt's editing is so remarkably in tune with the storytelling that sometimes it feels like she carries us through this story.
Our Hero, Balthazar is destined to be remembered during The Independent Spirit Awards once we hit awards season.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
