The Beaver 
 
 May 4, 2011 
 
 "The Beaver" is almost successful, despite the premise of its screenplay, which I was simply unable to accept. I concede it is possible that a man in depression might be able to heal himself by projecting his personality into a hand puppet. I am not sure it is possible, or even advisable, to make a serious movie about that. We go through the movie with Mel Gibson wearing a toothy beaver on his left hand, and that creates a whole lot of disbelief for us to suspend. 
 
 Yet here is another of Mel Gibson's fine performances, a reminder that he is after all a superb actor. His personal life is in ruins because of the disease of alcoholism, which he is still struggling with. Though he's responsible for his outrageous acts and statements, I think this is not the good man I have met many times. From what I know about alcoholism, I believe he goes through personality changes, that he is content on some days and consumed by rage and madness on others, and that such changes are symptoms of the disease. Make your own diagnosis. 
 
 
 
 It took some courage on the part of Jodie Foster to direct this film. I believes she knows Gibson's good side and respects his talent. He was certainly the right choice for this material. All of his troubles through recent years are summed up by her opening shot, of an exhausted man floating on a raft in a swimming pool, his arms wide like the crucified Christ. A voice (later revealed to be the Beaver's) informs us this is Walter Black, a man so deep in depression, he has alienated his family and nearly destroyed his business. 
 
 
 
 We meet his much-suffering wife Meredith (Jodie Foster), his resentful son Porter (Anton Yelchin) and his disbelieving colleagues. Meredith finally throws him out, not without love. He buys a bottle, checks into a motel, tries to kill himself and is interrupted by the hand puppet. Finding that the puppet has a voice of its own, he allows it to speak for him, and begins to re-enter his life. 
 
 
 
 Foster, Gibson and writer Kyle Killen make not the slightest attempt to employ the illusion of ventriloquism; Gibson manipulates the puppet and speaks from his own mouth, in an admirable if inexplicable Cockney accent. 
 
 
 
 His life improves in ways I leave for you to discover. I also leave you to wonder if Matt Lauer on a real "Today" program would chat with a hand puppet quite as he does here. A parallel plot involves Porter, the son, whose gift is to write papers for classmates that read as if they were written by those students themselves. The class valedictorian asks him to write her speech. If she's that smart, why can't she write it herself? She's going through problems, which Porter will discover in a side story that tends to lead us, however interestingly, away from the film's throughline. 
 
 
 
 What sort of movie would have resulted with the same characters but not the Beaver? We will never know. But without "The Beaver," we would never have witnessed a sexual threesome involving a hand puppet. Foster and Gibson must have gone through some serious times while making this film, but don't you suppose that while filming that sex scene they had to suppress the urge to giggle? 
 
 
 
 That is the fatal flaw in this sincere endeavor. As good as Gibson is, his character is still caught between the tragedy of the man and the absurdity of the Beaver. Fugitive thoughts of Señor Wences crept into my mind. I'm sorry, but they did. ||||| the industry Five Options for Releasing Mel Gibson’s The Beaver, and Why None Are Good 
 
 Mel Gibson’s next movie, The Beaver, was set to be released by Summit Entertainment in the spring or fall of 2011. Or at least that seemed like a fine game plan until the mother of his child, Oksana Grigorieva, accused him of physically abusing her and their baby, and released recordings of phone calls that purportedly show him crazily gasping to fill his lungs in order to more effectively call her three nasty names over and over again. Now, Summit finds itself what’s the technical term they use in Hollywood? Oh yes: superfucked. Execs at the company privately admit that even they don’t know what to do with the Jodie Foster–directed movie, the story of a depressed man who suffers a psychotic break when his family abandons him and becomes best friends with a beaver hand puppet that he imbues with an alternate personality with a British accent. One Summit suit calls the situation “unprecedented.” So what are their options? We’ve laid them out below, and as you’ll see, none of them are good. 
 
 OPTION 1: Send The Beaver Directly to DVD. 
 
 Why it could work: The Beaver might never earn back from theaters what it would cost to market the movie in the first place, so why not go to DVD, where you don’t have the huge publicity costs to make up for? 
 
 Why that will never work: First, going straight to video sends audiences a message that the film is in the same league as cheapo junk like American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile. For another, you can’t count on home video the way you used to for ancillary profits. The Los Angeles Times today reports that for the first half of the year, DVD sales were down about 15 percent, while DVD rental spending declined nearly 5 percent — thanks to a 55 percent jump in revenue at $1 per night kiosks like Red Box. 
 
 OPTION 2: Market The Beaver As a Jodie Foster Film, Not a Mel Gibson Movie. 
 
 Why it could work: Everybody loves Jodie Foster! She’s an American institution! And who doesn’t remember Little Man Tate fondly? 
 
 Why it will never work: Yes, Foster directed and played his wife. But insiders tell us Gibson is in 90 percent of the scenes in the movie, making it all but impossible to hide his involvement. What are you gonna do, kick him out of the poster? Look at how well that worked with Tom Cruise and Knight and Day. 
 
 OPTION 3: Sell The Beaver As a "Message Movie" About Mental Illness and Have Mel Publicly Say He Is, in Fact, Mentally Ill 
 
 Why it could work: Imagine all the interviewers asking, “Mel, have you ever felt like you were going crazy?” Then he could make a little joke, “Whatever could you be talking about?” then everyone chuckles, and he leans forward and says, “But seriously, mental illness affects everyone, as you see in this movie. Heck, it even happens to movie stars. And thank goodness I was able to get help. Everyone’s not so lucky.” 
 
 Why it will never work: Gibson recently lost his longtime agent and trusted confidant, Ed Limato, to lung cancer and was promptly cut loose by Limato’s former agency, William Morris Endeavor. Without Limato, who was well-known for his straight talk with clients, Gibson seems bereft of the professional advice that might preserve his career: He seems genuinely committed to the idea that he can still win custody of his youngest child and be consumed with hatred for its mother. Plus, when it comes to audience empathy for mental illness, there is a big difference between the clinically depressed and people who bellow “I DESERVE TO BE BLOWN!” 
 
 OPTION 4: Really Commit and Release The Beaver As an Oscar Contender and Hope for the Best. 
 
 Why it could work: Summit insiders (unsurprisingly) say that the Gibson film is quite good. (It’s not impossible: Wagner, after all, was a racist and an anti-Semite, but no one is suggesting The Ring Cycle wasn’t a mammoth operatic achievement.) The script by Kyle Killeen (creator of Fox’s buzzy new fall show Lone Star) topped the 2008 Black List, the annual list of best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. And the Motion Picture Academy loves Foster: She has been nominated for four Oscars and won two, and the fact that she’s been acting for 41 years means they look at her like proud parents, even though she’s 47. 
 
 Why it will never work: Audiences stayed away in droves from Gibson’s last starring vehicle, Edge of Darkness, and that was before he allegedly punched Grigorieva while she was holding his child. And while Foster has won both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards, she’s never been nominated for her directing, even for Little Man Tate. And let’s say, miracles of miracles, it becomes an Oscar contender. That’s hardly a box-office indicator: Despite The Hurt Locker being named last year’s Best Picture, Summit still only managed to squeeze an extra $1.7 million out of audiences after the Oscars. 
 
 OPTION 5: Put the Film on the Shelf Until the Moment Is Right. 
 
 Why it’s the best option: Scientists predict that in the year 2843, the human race will be overtaken by a race of cyborgs with the prime directive that they deserve to be blown. And they will need a summer tentpole. ||||| Mad Mel Gibson, as a depressed man struggling with serious mental problems, grabs your attention like a car wreck in Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver.” This bizarre little movie is all over the place as drama — but genuinely compelling as a one-of-a-kind piece of public self-flagellation. 
 
 It’s impossible to watch Gibson’s superb performance as a troubled man who employs a hand puppet for a most peculiar kind of self-help without wondering how much it’s informed by his well-publicized personal demons (see Gibson timeline on page 40). 
 
 Even as Kyle Killen’s script becomes ever more implausible and ultimately ridiculous, it’s impossible to take your eyes off the screen when the tortured and ill-looking Gibson is center stage. 
 
 He’s Walter Black, the “hopelessly depressed” CEO of a toy company on the verge of bankruptcy. During the rare moments when he isn’t actually asleep, Walter is a walking zombie. 
 
 His fed-up wife, Meredith (Foster), is particularly concerned about the toll that Walter’s two-year journey to the dark side is taking on their teenage son, Porter (Anton Yelchin), and his younger brother, (Riley Thomas Stewart). 
 
 Exiled to a motel, Walter stops on the way to buy out a liquor store — one of many touches that will have you thinking about Gibson’s tabloid exploits — and impulsively fishes a ratty beaver hand puppet from a Dumpster outside. 
 
 That night, our boozy hero makes a couple of abortive suicide attempts — the second interrupted by the Cockney-accented voice of the puppet (Gibson, sounding not a little like Michael Caine). 
 
 Coming to after a fall, Walter receives a pep talk from The Beaver, who he manipulates on his hand and speaks through. Suddenly, Walter is sort of his old perky self — though he lets his alter ego, who he identifies in printed cards he hands out as a “prescription puppet,” do most of the talking. 
 
 His wife, delighted with Walter’s new demeanor, goes along — to a point. A model of co-dependency, she welcomes him home, even though she finds sharing their bed with The Beaver a bit weird. 
 
 It’s more problematic when she insists on an anniversary celebration without The Beaver — this scene may be the best acting that Gibson has done in his entire career. It’s also one of the few scenes where Gibson speaks in something like his own voice rather than The Beaver’s cockney twang. 
 
 Even stranger is Walter’s return to work, where he introduces The Beaver — who proposes a new, beaver-themed woodworking kit that turns the company around. 
 
 It’s possible at first to accept this as a surreal comedy in the vein of “Lars and the Real Girl,” another film in which people go along with the lead character’s delusions. 
 
 Unfortunately, director Foster lets the tone shift during the too-long periods when the movie focuses on Walter’s older son, who despises his father. 
 
 Even though much of this seems like generic teen angst, it forces you to consider Walter’s behavior in a more realistic context. 
 
 Wouldn’t the wife get Walter committed soon after he showed up with The Beaver? Would his employees really obey orders from a hand puppet? 
 
 Gibson’s deeply committed performance helps get you past this, but only so far. Until Foster and Killen come up with a climax that doesn’t work. At. All. 
 
 I’m not sure that “The Beaver” is going to change people’s minds about Gibson, whose anti-Semitic, racist and misogynistic outbursts are all-too-well documented. Foster has certainly provided him with a unique mea culpa — and one of the most unusual comebacks in Hollywood history. 
 
 lou.lumenick@nypost.com
– Mel Gibson seemed to be begging for it, and now it's come: his Beaver fallout begins. The actor's bid to resurrect his career playing a depressed dad who cures himself by talking to his beaver hand puppet has taken a hilarious turn on YouTube. Altered trailers for Gibson's new film no longer feature a kindly beaver puppet who expresses concern in a British accent. Now the animal screams at Mel's character in Gibson's own deranged voice spliced in from angry phone calls to ex-lover Oksana Grigorieva. "You should just smile and blow me," and "You look like a b**** in heat!" the puppet shouts obscenely as Gibson looks baleful in his actorly best. Different videos are choosing different quotes to stuff in the beaver's mouth. The stunt was picked up by Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week. There's been no word so far from Mel or his pal and co-star, film producer/director Jodie Foster.