Beaver, The (2011) | Review

Being Whole Means Some Stuff Is Left Behind

Jacob Sahms

"This is the story of Walter Black..."

We hear that phrase throughout the movie, and all you really need to know is that Walter (Mel Gibson) has problems. Walter is a depressed company executive who is estranged from his wife (Jodie Foster), and elder son (Anton Yelchin). The main thrust of the story is about Walter's resurgence within his own family and the company he heads after years of struggling with depression and waffling between adjusting and absolute abandonment. Secondarily, we watch a "typical" high school romance between Yelchin's character and the "fake" school valedictorian (Jennifer Lawrence) that involves spray paint, plagiarism, and a few sweet moments about grasping life even when adults betray you.

Walter's resurgence comes in large part because of the large beaver hand puppet he takes out of the trash in the midst of his drunkenness and begins to talk to. The beaver speaks in a British accent, which is obviously Walter to everyone except for Walter. The beaver allows Walter to take control of his own life, becoming the person he should've been all along, a lover, father, leader, and member of his community. The beaver becomes a drug/counterbalance to his depression that allows him to grasp at the life he remembers when he was happy and successful, but it doesn't take him the whole way.

In the end, the beaver is a crutch that ultimately interferes with his ability to be fully integrated into society and family. Sure, that gets a "Duh, it's a beaver puppet!" But the beaver is the image for all of the things which we rely on to cope, instead of dealing with our problems head on. In many ways, I found myself thinking that this was really about Gibson, about his bouts with alcohol, and about his attempts to find a way to be the man so many people thought he was back in the past. In so many ways, I saw this as a testament to his struggle, publicly and privately.

Spoiler alert: The truth is that Walter has to remove the puppet from his life rather abruptly, and I'm reminded of how some things start off as good, keeping us well and healthy, and become obsessions or sins that separate us from the love of God and from each other. In Mark 9:47, Jesus urges his listeners that if their eye causes them to sin, to pluck it out, because it's better to enter heaven without an eye than to go to hell with both of them. It's strict, severe, and I don't take it as literally as Walter does in the dramatic scene, but it's a testament to Gibson and his struggles that to be made whole, sometimes, you have to cut something out.