“Being Charlie” opens on a good close-up of the title character, performed by “Jurassic World” star Nick Robinson, about to blow out the candles on his 18th birthday cake. The lights are darkened, his sober-living mates are singing throughout him – and the look of contempt on Charlie’s face is suddenly haunted, troubled and burning with hate.
Rob Reiner directed the tiny unbiased quasi-autobiography in 2015, written by his 22-year-old son Nick and his then brother-in-recovery Matt Elisofon. Little question the Hollywood megastar of “Princess Bride” fame made the movie below his storied Citadel Rock banner to assist out his oft-troubled son, who had been experiencing a uncommon interval of sobriety after numerous bouts with dependancy relapses, homelessness and unstable habits.
It was a household affair – Rob and Michele Singer Reiner’s elder son, Jake Reiner, had a cameo as a neighborhood newscaster – and by the Reiners’ personal frequent admissions on the press tour, not all the time a simple one. However regardless of experiences of stress on the set, “Being Charlie” was made with love, based on DP Barry Markowitz.
The movie begins as Charlie Mills bounces out of a rehab ranch in Utah whereas his father, David Mills, a former pirate-movie Hollywood celebrity, is wrapping up a good race for California governor. Performed by “Princess Bride” star Cary Elwes, the would-be politician lets his personal volatility get the most effective of him at instances, exacting a harsh tough-love marketing campaign on his charming however usually brooding, cynical and devil-may-care teen.
It was a troublesome movie to observe in 2015 – on a $3 million price range, it solely made $32,000 on the worldwide field workplace – however is even moreso 10 years later, after Nick Reiner, at a brand new low level with dependancy and mental-health struggles, murdered his dad and mom within the early hours of Sunday night time in the main bedroom of their Brentwood house with a knife, based on authorities.
Although “Being Charlie” is just loosely based mostly on Nick Reiner’s experiences, there are moments all through the movie that foreshadow a household tragedy that has gut-punched Hollywood for the previous a number of days.
Darkness on the party
Lengthy earlier than photographs of late-stage Nick Reiner’s look of ominous darkness – little doubt the face he wore on the Conan O’Brien Christmas occasion the place his presence made a scene on Saturday night time – had been circulated across the web, actor Nick Robinson channeled that power for the opening shot of “Being Charlie” as his downbeat housemates sing him joyful birthday.
“Charlie, why don’t you inform us what you need to thank God for and shut your eyes and make a want?” the sober-living director says. “Six months of sobriety? Nothing you need to say?”
Charlie glares at her, turns again round, and blows out the candles and not using a phrase.
Smashing the church window
Charlie Mills has had sufficient of the Heber Valley Restoration Ranch in Utah, and the next morning, sneaks out the door. However earlier than he crosses the outer gate, he turns round, walks as much as the chapel and hurls a big rock by way of a stunning stained-glass window bearing a technicolor crucifix.
Erratic bouts of violence had marked Nick Reiner’s whole younger grownup life, even lengthy after “Being Charlie” was made. He advised the host of the “Dopey” podcast in 2018 that the 12 months earlier than, he rampaged by way of his household’s visitor home, holed up for days with cocaine and different substances, repeatedly punching the tv and damaging furnishings till “simply all the things acquired wrecked.”
Stealing medicine from a Good Samaritan
Hitchhiking his method again to Los Angeles, Charlie is picked up by a scruffy man in a truck whose cancer-stricken mom is groaning within the backseat. The person stops to drop his mom off at her home – the place Charlie steals a bottle of Oxycontin from the lady’s drugs cupboard. He’s caught with the tablet bottle and tossed again out onto the dusty highway.
The scene illustrates the basic conundrum for anybody who tries to assist out a determined addict – the extra you give, the extra they take. So it was for Nick Reiner, whose dad and mom tried for years to strike that steadiness.
“These poor individuals did all the things to assist this child,” one household good friend, who lives a couple of blocks away from the Reiner house, mentioned after the murders.
… Aaron Carter?
Lastly again in California, Charlie is picked up in Barstow by his finest good friend Adam, a drug consumer and ne’er-do-well himself. Adam eggs him on to do an impromptu rap, and Charlie begrudgingly obliges:
“Lastly clear-headed, however not sober/ I’m the neatest child round and not using a highschool diploma/ and I hold getting smarter, if you happen to wanna fuck with me … Aaron Carter.”
Adam jabs him for the clumsy couplet, and Charlie says merely that he was cornered into it with the earlier line ending in “smarter.” However it was additionally a foreboding reference, as Carter – who was alive on the time the movie was made – struggled with a lot the identical circumstances as Nick Reiner.
The infamous pop singer and rapper’s escalating dependancy and habits, together with threats to hurt and kill family members, psychological sickness and an obsession with weapons, acquired so dangerous that in 2019 his older brother – Nick Carter – obtained a restraining order.
In 2022, when Aaron Carter was 34, he died of unintentional drowning with the consequences of an inhaled aerosol propellant and Xanax listed as components.
A Stormy Intervention
Charlie and Adam make it again to the Mills’ household house in Los Angeles, an opulent compound nestled behind a high-security gate – just like the Reiners’ house in Brentwood. His mom and father are seated on a sofa with an intervention specialist who’s able to take him again to one more inpatient facility. Charlie is livid and lashes out at his dad.
“What number of instances do I’ve to inform you, these locations don’t work for me?” he screams.
“Your mom and I’ve already determined,” his father sternly shoots again. “You’ll be able to both return to remedy, or again to the streets. It’s your selection.”
Charlie snarls: “That’s a simple one.”
Rob Reiner repeatedly mentioned on “Being Charlie” press excursions that he generally regretted listening to dependancy specialists’ recommendation to stay in a tough-love stance, and got here to agree along with his son that rehab simply wasn’t doing the trick for him.
Within the movie, Charlie relents, and is again in an L.A. facility – if begrudgingly.
“The one illness I’ve is that this place,” he snaps at a counselor throughout a bunch session. “It makes you are feeling like a fucking leper, after which once you get out, everybody expects you to fuck up once more so that you begin utilizing. It’s like, you maintain our heads underwater after which they arrive down on us for making an attempt to return up for air. You’re not slinging dope, you’re slinging false hope and serenity.”
‘Yo ho-ho-ho, the Battle Has Begun’
David Mills and his spouse Liseann (performed by Susan Misner) are having lunch at a elaborate L.A. spot when a retiree sees him from a couple of tables away, walks up and asks for a selfie.
“I’m sorry Mr. Mills, I simply need to shake your hand,” the person says. “We’re all pulling for you. I’m an enormous fan of your movies!”
In a second that certainly appeared harmless in 2015, the person then picks up a knife, brandishes it at Mills, and recites his pirate character’s phrase: “Yo ho-ho and the battle’s begun!”
Mills additionally grabs a knife and the 2 playfully swashbuckle for a second.
In an earlier scene, whereas Charlie is sitting at a desk outdoors the inpatient facility, a fellow affected person confronts him gleefully: “Are you David Mills’ son?”
He admits that he’s – whereupon one other affected person grabs him from behind and pretends to slash him within the neck: “Yo ho-ho-ho-ho, the battle has begun! I fucking love that,” the person gushes.
Don’t depart Charlie alone
David Mills and his spouse are serving meals at a picnic when the marketing campaign supervisor informs them that their whistle-stop tour will proceed unabated.
“Wait, I believed we had been going again to L.A. earlier than selecting again up?” she whispers to David, who seems to be irritated. “You knew about these dates honey,” he growls at her.
“However Charlie is getting out of inpatient,” she says, involved.
The scene echoes the rationale Nick Reiner was on the Conan O’Brien vacation occasion – based on a number of media experiences on Tuesday, the couple didn’t need to depart Nick house alone, and politely requested the host if he might tag alongside.
Charlie’s public contempt for his father
On a number of events, Charlie overtly speaks about how a lot he hates his father.
Throughout a role-playing session in rehab, a fellow affected person is taking part in David Mills, saying to Charlie: “Son, you’ve been nothing however a disappointment to me.”
A counselor says: “Charlie, do you’ve something you need to say to your dad?”
Clean-faced, Charlie replies: “I dunno. Fuck you?”
Throughout a halfway-house expertise present, Charlie is dusting off his standup routine.
“I do know what you’re considering, who is that this particular person with the silver spoon in his mouth, and why does he hold placing heroin in it?” Charlie jokes. “Whole waste of a great utensil. So yeah, my dad’s a chunk of shit. I don’t have a joke, simply wished to say it.”
From dagger-eyes to dagger references
After weeks of sobriety and good habits, Charlie earns an in a single day move from the halfway-house chief, accepted and facilitated by his mother (behind David Mills’ again). She brings him her automobile and the keys to the household seaside home, the place Charlie brings Eva – his new girlfriend, a fellow now-outpatient – and he or she is shocked by the opulence of the “second house.”
“You’ve acquired to stab lots of people with pretend swords to get this,” Charlie remarks.
Extra smashed home windows, swords and shouting matches
At one level, Eva runs away from the midway home to start utilizing once more – and Charlie chases after her. His first cease is to his dad and mom’ home, the place he smashes a window to achieve entry and steal a automobile from the storage. However his dad and mom are house.
Listening to the noise of glass breaking, David picks up a fireplace poker and brandishes it like a cutlass – knowingly – as he approaches the parking space of the compound, the place he finds Charlie about to drive off.
The dialogue is heated.
“Is that this the way you need to dwell your life? Huh? Messing issues up in order that daddy has to maintain cleansing up after you?,” David shouts. “Hold blaming different individuals to your shit. Why can’t you simply be trustworthy and personal one thing for as soon as?”
The look of rage is again on Charlie’s face.
“Honesty, I’m glad you introduced that up, Dad. I used to be by no means an enormous fan of your pirate films, however that sociopath you performed on the cellphone with that Utah bullshit, that was spot-on,” he says, referring to an earlier second when David lied to Charlie about potential costs for the window-smashing incident.
Massive brother Jake’s cameo
In a pair of blink-and-you’d miss them (however spot-on) cameos, Jake Reiner, Nick’s older brother, performs a neighborhood Fox 11 Information anchor who’s interviewing the Mills of their house.
“Now with a political marketing campaign of this magnitude, it’s acquired to take some toll on your loved ones,” he says, wanting each bit the polished speaking head. “So can I ask, how’s your son holding up?”
The Mills give completely different solutions as they discuss over one another:
“He’s had a tough time,” Liseann says, whereas David interrupts: “We spoke to him this morning and he’s doing simply nice.”
Reconciliation on the seaside home
David Mills has gained the governorship in a squeaker and, searching for Charlie, finds him on the seaside home. The son is in the course of cleansing up the damaged glass from a pair of wine bottles he smashed in anger after Eva snuck away. Mills, clearly in no temper to combat, doesn’t flinch:
“I do know you’re offended at me, and also you most likely don’t need to hear this proper now, however I do love you,” he tells Charlie, who for the primary time within the movie is just not evident at his father. “Look, I’m sorry. Each professional with a desk and a diploma advised me I needed to be robust on you. However each time we despatched you off to a different a kind of applications, I noticed you slipping away from us. And all I might inform myself was, I’d quite have you ever alive and hating me than lifeless on the streets. So what would you like me to do? Inform me what to do.”
Flatly, Charlie says: “You don’t need to do something.”
“You need to come as much as Sacramento? Get away from all of the … “
“What? The medicine?,” says Charlie, again on protection. “It was by no means concerning the medicine. All I wished was … a strategy to kill the noise. However the extra I used, the louder it acquired.”
David seems to be down on the floor. “I used to be a part of the noise, wasn’t I?”
Charlie makes the signal of “a bit of bit” and turns his again.
“So. What are you going to do?” David asks.
“I don’t know. I’ll determine it out,” Charlie replies calmly, then, grabbing his backpack to go away, turns again round and says to his father: “I don’t hate you. I don’t.”
The 2 share an at-first awkward embrace as tears properly up in David’s eyes.
“You are taking excellent care of your self, OK?” he says.
And the credit roll.
