Honey Boy and Shia LaBeouf’s Conversion

Honey Boy, written by Shia LaBeouf, and directed by Alma Har’el is a meta film about the troubled relationship between Shia LaBeouf and his father Jeffrey. The acting is masterfully done, Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges playing young and old Otis respectively, and LaBeouf himself playing Otis’ father James.

The movie plays out seemingly exactly how the events played out in LaBeouf’s life. The film begins with Otis shooting a big budget action film, spiraling to rock bottom, and serving court ordered rehab and therapy- where he begins writing.

Though another article could also be written just to explore the technical side of Honey Boy, I’m completely fascinated by the change of heart that LaBeouf has seemingly gone through in the past few years, especially through the creation of this film. LaBeouf likens the process of writing and acting in Honey Boy to an exorcism. In an interview with Variety he said, “Well, you excise demons. This felt a little bit like an exorcism.”

This is very strong language for someone raised in a secular culture. This speaks to the strength these demons of his life held over him. The darkness he experienced was tangible to him, and the subsequent freedom he found was equally tangible.

Honey Boy is a serious witness to the power of speaking truth. Through this movie, LaBeouf shares the hardships of his life in a truly vulnerable way. He sincerely depicts the deeply dysfunctional relationship with his father- something that informed the rest of his life and all of his downfalls.

Honey Boy depicts a father who is an alcoholic drug addict, who has very skewed ideas of what it means to be a father and man in general. All of these disorders are inherently passed on to a young boy who is trying to grow up, understand what masculinity truly means, and act full time on top of it. In all of these circumstances, demons are passed on from father to son, leading Otis down a dark path growing up.

When Otis is older, he struggles with drugs, drinking, promiscuity, and gets in trouble with the law- all things his father lived with too. In an interview with MTV News, LaBeouf described his life before writing and filming Honey Boy, saying,

“I was totally bullshit lost and quite apathetic to my whole craft and my life … Really bottom barrel for me, which was like, really what I needed. I wasn’t going to stop doing what I was doing until that happened to me. Some people are just really stubborn, I’m one of those.”

One major line from the movie that stood out to me while watching it came from Otis’ neighbor who told him, “You can walk on water until someone tells you that you don’t know how to.” But, while the girl is saying this, the screen pans to a pool with a snake slithering across the water. He sees this statement as from the Devil. He walked the path of action without consequence for much of his life, but it lead to death.

Shia now sees the falsity of this statement that he was likely taught when he was younger. You can tell yourself that you can walk on water, but the reality is that you can’t, and while you were “walking on water”- doing anything and everything you wanted without consequences- you were really helplessly drowning.

Toward the end of the movie, Otis returns to his father to reconcile- to tell him about how he was going to tell their story. James perfectly sums up the overarching theme of the movie: “A seed has to totally destroy itself to become a flower. That’s a violent act, Honey Boy.” LaBeouf has clearly recognized this reality in his life, but is ultimately growing from it. The seed of his life was planted in childhood, but the death took a long time for him. Telling his story is the flowering.

His demons led him to the bottom of the barrel, but it was at the bottom where he was forced to confront the real desires of his heart- community, creativity, and authenticity. What actually brought about change in him was unearthing the darkness and confusion of his past, bringing it to the reality of the present. He saw his past for what it truly was; before he started exposing the lies of his heart, the lies controlled him.

LaBeouf described the process of uncovering his dark past in therapy saying, “I had a flashlight on, rummaging through the attics of my soul, trying to figure stuff out— figure my past out.” The honesty and authentic emotion of Honey Boy was a beautiful surprise for me. He chronicles the nearly complete loss of innocence he faced in his early childhood, in heartbreaking fashion.

But through it all, speaking about the role the movie played in his life, he said, “It saved my life. They were throwing dirt on my back. It saved me.” Revealing the darkness of his heart to the light of the world resurrected him.

Conversion, authenticity, and vulnerability are magnets for community. The authenticity and vulnerability of a converted life demand authenticity and vulnerability in others, which in turn creates community. The same was true for LaBeouf. When he woke up at the bottom of the barrel, he realized he was lacking the most basic human need- friends, community. Demons isolate, but truth integrates.

While watching many recent interviews with Shia, it was difficult to find any where he did not talk about, or at least mention the Slauson Recreation Center. This rec center, located in an impoverished neighborhood in Las Angeles is where LaBeouf started a theater company in order to spread the arts to people who would never be interested in it otherwise; he also says he started it because he was extremely lonely. When the interviewer asked whether or not he was serious about saying he needed friends, LaBeouf said, “Yes. Nothing facetious about that. We all do. You do … Yes, I’m building a theater group, but I’m also building that group of people that I need in my life— it’s a family.”

Post conversion, he needed family to ground him, and finding it changed everything in his life. He goes on, “I have a good group around me now. I’m closer to my [biological] family than I ever have been. I have 250 people who hold me down [Slauson Rec Center], and it’s not like we come in here and dip. We’re like, very close. I’ve never had my feet as firmly planted in the floor as I do now. I’ve never felt more human.”

Again, Demons dehumanize, but Truth humanizes. All of this stemmed from searching for the darkness inside of him and exposing it to the world and to light- breeding authenticity, vulnerability, and community. Honey Boy is the root of all of this change, and it really does express the power of speaking truth, especially through the mode of film. It is a heartbreakingly beautiful account of truth, and well worth watching.