Honey Boy

Honey Boy (2019) is Alma Har'el's drama, ready to watch online on iFILM. Shia LaBeouf wrote the screenplay about his own childhood and then took on the role of his father — a hot-tempered, hard-drinking former rodeo clown who shuttles his ten-year-old son between film sets and pockets the boy's paychecks.

The story runs on two timelines. The grown Otis (Lucas Hedges) lands in rehab after a crash, and a therapist asks him to write his past out scene by scene. From those pages a younger Otis emerges (Noah Jupe), a twelve-year-old living with his dad in a roadside motel, supporting the household and learning to love a man who humiliates and protects him in the same breath. LaBeouf plays his own parent with no self-pity and no excuses — a rare case of an actor literally inhabiting the person who broke him.

The film premiered at Sundance and drew praise for exactly that rawness. It's a quiet, jittery piece for viewers who want intimate, almost confessional cinema rather than a loud biopic. Stream Honey Boy (2019) online on iFILM.