Noah Jupe, Lucas Hedges and Shia LaBeouf blow up in the red-band trailer for ‘Honey Boy’

Honey Boy takes a page from the real life of actor Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences that details the actor’s stormy childhood and adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health.

The film debuted at Sundance earlier this year where it won a Special Jury Prize and is the feature debut of filmmaker Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach, LoveTrue) from a screenplay by LaBeouf himself. Fictionalizing his ascent to stardom, and subsequent crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Har’el casts Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) and Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased, Manchester by the Sea) as Otis Lort (a stand-in for LaBeouf), navigating different stages in a frenetic career.

LaBeouf takes on the therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Dancer-singer FKA twigs makes her feature-film debut, playing neighbor and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as medicine and imagination as hope through the life and times of a talented, traumatized performer who dares to go in search of himself.

The film is produced by Har’el, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Anita Gou and Christopher Leggett. Executive Producers are Fred Berger, Rafael Marmor, Daniel Crown and Bill Benenson. Honey Boy is produced by Automatik and Delirio, in association with Stay Gold Features, Kindred Spirit and Red Crown Productions.

Amazon Studios will release Honey Boy in theaters on November 8, 2019.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• 2024 North Carolina Film Critics Association (NCFCA) Nominations - December 21, 2024
• 2024 Philadelphia Film Critics Circle (PFCC) Winners: ‘Anora’ Named Best Film Among its Six Awards - December 21, 2024
• 2024 Utah Film Critics Association (UFCA) Nominations - December 21, 2024