Directed by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz

Screenplay by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Zack Gottsagen, Dakota Johnson,

I had a great smile on me for the majority of The Peanut Butter Falcon. Maybe it was seeing Shia LaBeouf, who has had a troublesome career to say the least, finally come to some calming onscreen mentoring presence. Maybe it was seeing  Zack Gottsagen, a person with down’s syndrome, play a character with down syndrome, and instead of being terrible it is incredibly heartwarming. Maybe it’s that the pairing of polar misfits always works so well in stories. Maybe it’s that the very best stories are about friendship. An outlaw and a kid with down syndrome chill for 90 minutes. This is probably one of the best movies I have seen so far this year.

2019 has been strange, and quite a letdown at the movies. Alita did nothing for me, and Endgame was a massive disappointment. I liked Godzilla 2 and Tarantino’s new film a lot. But more often than not I’ve just felt we’re missing movies that do things. That change the landscape, that stand out. That make us feels things. I’ve neglected going to the movies as much as I wanted to again. I’ve allowed trash like The Lion King and Hobbs and Shaw to dissuade me, which is something I should never do. But when I saw the trailer for The Peanut Butter Falcon I started to have hope again.

The movie is not perfect, but it is so touching that I think it doesn’t matter. The writers/directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz wrote the role specifically for Zack, who had always wanted to be an actor. His role in the film has him dream of always wanting to be a professional wrestler, which was written to mirror his own dream of acting. The opening scene alone will win any skeptics over. I was instantly in

Zak is stuck in a nursing home he doesn’t want to be in. His family left him behind two and a half years ago. He wants to escape and go to the wrestling school he sees on the tape he always watches. Dakota Johnson’s Eleanor is his caretaker, who has to label him a flight risk for his attempts to run away.

How Zak finally gets out is great, and Bruce Dern’s helping hand is so good. And now that the 22 year old kid with DS has fled, Eleanor is pressured by her callous boss to find him. The premise is set.

And while this is happening Shia’s Tyler has been robbing crabs from a rival fisherman, since Tyler himself is not licensed. His brother (Jon Bernthal) was before he passed away. It’s a wise choice by the movie to play his scenes quick all in quiet flashback memories. The rival fisherman (played by John Hawkes, who was the frightening Teardrop in Winter’s Bone) beats him down and threatens his life if he ever steals crabs from him again. Tyler sets fire to the dock, doing about 12 grand worth of damage to Hawkes, and steals one of his boats to run for his life.

Hiding under the cloth on the boat is Zak, who saw Tyler get his ass beat. They meet face to face when Tyler holds him at knifepoint to keep him quiet on the boat so Hawkes cant hear them.

I think this encounter is great. I love everything about them walking together knee deep in the water away from their sinking boat, with the ocean being endless all around them. It seems almost impossible, and other worldly, these moments of Tyler wading away, not realizing Zak is following him. It’s shot by Nigel Bluck, who has given the film the look of a classic tale. No doubt because I hear this is based on Huckleberry Finn. But I never read Huckleberry Finn so fuck that shit. This scene is just so brilliant. It reminded me of the train in the middle of the ocean in Spirited Away, and how Miyazaki framed it. That the filmmakers had the patience to show it in those perfect wides, and let the actors be real enough to earn it.

Eventually Tyler figures out they are headed in the same direction, and lets Zak tag along with him. The movie is at its best with every scene between the two of them. And its wonderful locations on such a minimal setting. They walk through those cornfields for a long while, but it never feels that way.

Gottsagen’s performance is so good that it will make a star of him. Not once did I cringe or not believe his heart was not truly in it. The way he moves onscreen is so quirky yet so exuberant, even in the background. He does everything with an innocent energy that an actor without DS could not possibly have portrayed.

And Shia. Who has come such a long way. From his turbulent shoots on much of his work, and his chaotic actual life sadly being on public blast most of his life. And how he fell (or ascended?) into pure memedom in recent years. And his super avant garde art exhibit, and him streaming himself live watching all his movies. But now he seems to finally found peace in the community and charity work he’s been doing. And he says working with Gottsagen changed him, “when he talks you lean in, you listen hard. And I wasn’t listening like that, I wasn’t greeting the world like that. He greets the world like this, with an open heart. Everybody starts at 100 with him, and I wasn’t moving like that. And I have been moving different since knowing him. Leaning in to people you know.” Oh my god

And that Gottsagen was a fan of Even Stevens and wished to work with Shia one day. This is all too touching to be true. Movies like this show that anything is possible. I don’t want to go more into details about the plot. For the most part it avoids the forced indie moments that make you want to kill yourself, but makes a decision I don’t agree with towards the end. And a rather mean spirited character and climax that leads to the movie’s most puzzling moment. And a final turn that I feel was forced to be made because the other outcome would have been too heartbreaking.

But look, most of this movie is incredible. The friendship between Tyler and Zak is so genuine and pure that it could not have been acted. Shia and Zack formed a real bond on set, so maybe they were not acting at all. The filmmakers allowed them to improv and have creative say in the scenes. It is real, and funny at the right times. And when Eleanor finds them the movie handles it so well I was shocked. And her conversations with Tyler reveal more to her character than most movies would think of. Dakota is charming and vulnerable, and fits right in with them on that little boat. And the whole Meet Your Hero doomed cliche has been torn here and revised for the infinitely better. This whole movie looks amazing, even just the three of them on that little boat at sea. And Shia’s whole getup, the camping gear and gun and white boots, and his duct taped hat. The movie’s sound design is just so point with it all too. I thought about Mud, and McConaughey’s friendship with a young Tye Sheridan. There are more similarities to that movie along the way too.

But Ah! That ending! The movie was doing so well until then. I’ll just say that a spectacularly unfit decision was made here, and I felt uncomfortable as I watched it. It is what is preventing me from loving the whole thing more. The Peanut Butter Falcon is still mostly a great film, but deserved better for the end.