‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ Review: Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield Astonish in Oscar Boyson’s Look at Teenage Dirtbags, Baby [B+]
Internet attention can be fickle, to put it lightly. The almighty algorithm (all hail!) favors human behavior that would normally be considered anti-social or extreme. Emotional outbursts, declarations of ill intent, violence…we’ve all seen the worst examples of human capability go viral, and who among us isn’t guilty of staring directly into the blinding sun of outrageous social media posts? Oscar Boyson’s debut feature Our Hero, Balthazar is a piercing, truthful look at the ways that the Internet can maximize our worst impulses and reward unquestionably negative actions. Reflective and urgent, it stands as one of the more honest cinematic interpretations of our current moment and how this age of unabashed attention-seeking affects us all.
We first meet the titular Balthazar in the primary way that contemporary teenagers present themselves to the world: having an emotional moment directly into his phone’s camera, flatteringly lit by a ring light. He’s played by Jaeden Martell, one of our finest interpreters of youthful sociopathy (Knives Out, The Lodge). Balthazar is so privileged that a different, more lofty adjective would be a better descriptor (Vaunted? Exalted?) He lives with his mother Nicole (the always captivating Jennifer Ehle), a power player in the world of political networking, in a Manhattan penthouse paid for by Balthazar’s absent father. But despite his life of luxury, Balthazar is lonely. The closest thing he has to a friend is his chauffeur who drives him to and from his private school.
Teenage loneliness is nothing new, in both the real world and the cinematic one. What makes this film’s exploration of the subject feel fresh is the way that it dives into Gen Z’s tendency to turn to the Internet and all its wonderful, terrible methods of instant gratification to fill IRL voids. Boyson and his co-writer Ricky Camilleri are careful to never completely blame the kids of today for their social media dependency, showcasing examples of absent, neglectful, or straight-up harmful parenting as reasons for their younger characters’ flight to curated online worlds. But they don’t let these young username-havers off the hook either. Instead, Our Hero, Balthazar frames the Internet in the same way that cigarettes were depicted around the turn of the century: as an understandable yet still harmful addiction.
Following an over-the-top active shooter drill at his school, Balthazar develops an instant crush on Eleanor (Pippa Knowles), a fellow student with a passion for gun control. Seeking to impress her, Balthazar ostensibly takes up this cause too, which leads him to make an inadvertent online bond with a self-proclaimed wannabe school shooter, who we eventually learn is named Solomon (Asa Butterfield). Desperate to impress Eleanor, Balthazar wriggles his way into Solomon’s life, eventually going to meet him in his economically destitute hometown in Texas.
Butterfield is sensational and completely unrecognizable. The English actor adopts a totally different look (an intentionally-unfortunate dye job, unflattering facial hair, and wannabe-subversive wardrobe) and believable Texas twang that make it hard to believe he’s the same actor who once played the curious young French boy Hugo in Martin Scorsese’s film of the same name. It would’ve been easy to play Solomon as totally withdrawn, leaning into stereotypes of school shooters that are, unfortunately, all too familiar to modern day Americans. But Butterfield’s Solomon is immediately pitiable, occasionally outgoing, and totally compelling. It’s the kind of performance that instantly announces to those who may be unaware that a former child star has confidently and successfully made the leap into adulthood as an actor.
Martell is reliably sturdy as the film’s central figure. He believably portrays a character making things up as he goes, uncertain or uncaring of how his actions may affect others in a way that’s so specifically teenage. And although Balthazar is slimy and opportunistic, Martell’s natural guileless energy makes it hard to look away from him. He leans into the film’s sardonic tone, which calls to mind the way that Heathers captures a cynical youthful spirit (this perspective is accentuated by the filmmaking, as in the “meet-cute” scene between Balthazar and Eleanor, with romantic music underscoring a shockingly bloody school shooter drill).
Although its look at the quirks and habits of social media citizens feels honest, especially to chronically online audience members (guilty, Your Honor), the narrative itself takes some convenient turns that stretch believability. Balthazar’s journey to Texas is essentially glossed over, as is the reason that Solomon takes him in after Balthazar introduces himself under suspicious circumstances. Of course, this can be explained away by pointing to the two characters’ overwhelming loneliness, which could blind them to behavior that would raise an alarm for most people, especially anyone already fully grown. And once the two start to really bond in-person, their dynamic is fascinating. Their upbringings and living situations couldn’t be more different, but because they’re both isolated in their own way, their curious connection is quick and real. They both lack control in different ways, despite being on total opposite ends of the spectrum of privilege. And when they both find a level of individual control by shooting a gun, the change they both experience is instant and obvious. There’s even an unexpected, psychosexual confusion between the two, as attraction and pleasure get mixed up with the satisfaction they feel through violent means. Their dual desires and needs for connection intermingle, making for a bizarrely absorbing on-screen pair.
Our Hero, Balthazar is an engrossing look at the difficulties and idiosyncrasies of contemporary bonds forged over the internet. It avoids being didactic or condescending, instead depicting its characters with a careful blend of pity and disdain, leaning stronger on one approach over the other when appropriate. Oscar Boyson’s film makes a clear distinction between the characters who are actually authentic in their beliefs and those more interested in the performance of authenticity. The latter mode of expression is, unfortunately, what more commonly gets traction today, and Boyson’s movie is unsparingly critical of social media’s ability to encourage exploitation and fuel brazenly opportunistic behavior.
Grade: B+
Our Hero, Balthazar is currently in select theaters in New York City from Picturehouse. It will expand to Los Angeles on April 3 and wider in the coming weeks.
He currently resides in Chicago and is a proud member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. He also writes and podcasts for Next Best Picture and co-hosts his own podcast “Halloweeners: A Horror Movie Podcast.” You can follow him on Twitter, Letterboxd, and Bluesky @codymonster91
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