The first trailer for Honey Boy, a new film starring Shia LaBeouf, is out now. As previously reported, the film sees LaBeouf play a thinly veiled version of his own dad.
Honey Boy follows a young actor named Otis Lort (played by Noah Jupe) and his Hollywood father (LaBeouf). Lucas Hedges co-stars as a teenage version of Otis. Intriguingly, FKA twigs is set to appear in the movie too, making her feature film debut.
“From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach, LoveTrue) brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health,” a synopsis reads in a press release.
“Fictionalising 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, 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 neighbour 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.”
Writing about Honey Boy after a screening at Sundance earlier this year, we said that “as an act of memoir, the film is fascinating to behold – it feels strikingly personal and intimate, as though you’re seeing the pages of a journal reimagined for the screen”.
Watch the trailer below, and revisit our recent interview with LaBeouf here.