The Beaver (US) - Good Performance but Mediocrity Story

The Beaver
Synopsis:
The movie revolves around a middle age guy named Walter Black (Mel Gibson) who is very depressed. Although he owns a toy company inherited from his father as a CEO, but due to his depression, his company sales is dwindling while he takes a nap day and night. This also causes strain to his wife, Meredith (Jodie Foster), elder son, Porter (Anton Yelchin) and youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) up to a point that they decided to kick him out from their house. In the hotel room, a very depressed Walter decided to take his own life but due to a clumsy mishap, he was knocked unconscious. The next morning, he found himself talking to a beaver hand puppet which incidentally is himself. So, Walter began to have an alternate personality - one as himself and one as the beaver puppet. As a puppet, he began to to find confidences in himself by turning his losing company to a rising company by introducing a new toy, and also began to improve his relationship with his family - Meredith and Henry but not Porter. But all this comes with one condition: everyone wished to communicate with him must talk though his puppet Beaver. At first, it was deemed funny and mistakenly as a therapeutic medication but soon, Meredith feels that being Walter is more real than when he is being a puppet. This cause rift and soon, Walter began to realize the effect of his split personality of the Beaver trying to take control of everything. Thus, in order to remove the Beaver from his life, he decided to amputate his hands and remove the Beaver. Porter arrive in time to save his dad by bringing him to the hospital. Walter who loses his hand, was fixed with a prosthetic hand instead and stayed in the hospital for his recovery. During this time, his company appointed a new CEO but his wife, Porter and Henry reconciles with him and Walter began to returns normal without depression and enjoys his time with his family again.     
Review:
I always like the acting of Jodie Foster because i felt that she has that intelligent look with strong character like in the movie: The Accused, Silence of the Lamb, Panic Room, Contact, Flightplan. I love all those movies and as much as i hate Mel Gibson for his personal life issues recently, he did a great job as Walter Black. The movie scene looks more funnier than an emotional drama, due to the presence of the Beaver personality. As such, it makes Walter Black looks not convincing enough to be sympathize by the viewers - in my case. It is more of a light heart drama but quite a forgettable one too. The movie storyline is not too in-depth and i guess too simple - Walter have a depression, Walter having split-personality, Walter rediscover himself, Walter became normal. There are many ways to put such a simple storyline tag and to make it more emotional and finally the triumph of Walter succeeding in beating depression but it was not shown in that sense. However mediocrity the film is was saved by the good performance of Gibson, Foster and Yelchin.     

Verdict:

I give this a 2.5 star out of 5