Being Charlie, a 2016 movie directed by the late Rob Reiner, stands out from the director’s filmography for a number of reasons. It’s a gritty and grounded addiction movie with a few comic elements, less ebullient than many of the movies Reiner was famous for, as well as the others he was making in the 2010s. It features then-up-and-coming stars, rather than more established figures, and way more sex and nudity than usual. And it’s the only movie co-written by Reiner’s son, Nick, whose experiences formed the basis for the screenplay, and who is now expected to be charged in the murder of both his parents.
Those horrific circumstances transform Being Charlie from one of Reiner’s more interesting late-period efforts into the subject of unavoidable rubbernecking. Here is a film Reiner made in collaboration with his son, in part as an obvious act of hope that the worst of his struggles would prove to be behind him. Real life was not quite so cooperative as the open-ended but vaguely optimistic resolution of a well-intentioned indie drama.
Following an astonishing initial run of classics in the first decade of his directing career and some less widely beloved films in the years since, by the 2010s Reiner had seemingly settled into a groove making vehicles for ageing Hollywood stars like Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, and Diane Keaton, presumably inspired by the commercial success of his 2007 drama The Bucket List, starring Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Being Charlie departed from those narratives, as well as from his 80s classics. Rather than welcoming identification with old timers proving they weren’t quite done living their lives, the film’s point of entry is college-aged Charlie (Nick Robinson), a kid who’s been in and out of rehab programs as his famous father David (Cary Elwes, Reiner’s leading man from The Princess Bride) looks on disapprovingly.
In a weird and sometimes distracting tweak from real life – the kind of adjustment that calls as much attention to itself as more directly biographical details might – David isn’t a former actor and current director with an interest in politics, like Reiner was. Instead, he’s a former actor, famous for playing a pirate, played by an actor who played a pirate in one of Reiner’s movies, actually running for governor of California. (This was something Reiner himself did consider, but ultimately decided against.) It’s just referential enough to feel more like an in-joke than an analog. The elder Reiner’s abiding interest in comedy – he grew up as the son of famous comedy performer and film-maker Carl Reiner – is transposed to Charlie, depicted as having an interest in and talent for standup.
That’s not to say Nick Reiner couldn’t have been interested in comedy, too, or that making up that interest couldn’t be a valid way into the story for him or his co-writer Matt Elisofon. But rewatching the film in the wake of this family tragedy, it’s queasily interesting to locate what feels most authentic, even within the confines of the movie. It’s not the family melodrama between Robinson and Elwes, nor is it the grittiest consequences-of-addiction sequences that sometimes feel tacked-on and histrionic. It’s the material occupying that uneasy middle ground, where Charlie is in rehab but itching to leave, or staying sober at a halfway house while pining for a girl he met in rehab. The other material feels like an intrusion, and in retrospect, it’s hard not to wonder whether it’s a product of Reiner prodding the movie toward a family project. Given that, it’s impressively self-lacerating – the humorless Elwes character isn’t at all flattering to the lovable-goof persona Reiner often assumed in his acting work – while still re-orienting an addict’s story into father-son redemption.
Technically speaking, Being Charlie does stand out from Reiner’s later-period work. It’s attentive to its young actors, just as his classics are, and its visual shades and textures are distinct from those, too (as well as from his lesser films). He was always a capable craftsman, which sometimes left him subject to the quality of the screenplays he worked with, even as he had a hand in shaping them. With writers (whether of the scripts or the source materials) as varied as William Goldman, Aaron Sorkin, Stephen King, and Nora Ephron, Reiner could preserve their voices and bring out their best. All four of those writers have countless other projects where they were not so lucky. His attempt to lavish the same sort of attention on his son is touching.
And also, now, harrowing. As much as Charlie remains the center of the film, he’s imperfect not just as a person but as an attempt to understand Nick Reiner’s demons. There’s no hint of violence to Charlie, or even much emotional instability; his problems with his family and with substance abuse are familiar, empathetic, understandable. Rob Reiner had a clear interest in the mechanics of storytelling; so many of his movies hinge on narration, stories within stories, and the narratives we use as building blocks in our lives. That story was missing something crucial here, for heartbreaking understandable reasons leading to unfathomable off-screen horror. Being Charlie once felt vaguely as if it might be eliding some greater pain. Now that pain has found it.
Being Charlie is available on Tubi in the US, Amazon Prime in the UK and Plex in Australia
