He copes with his depression by speaking only through a glove puppet of the furry creature, which he wears permanently on his hand. For this, he adopts a faux-cockney accent for reasons never explained, although close your eyes and you can almost imagine you're in the presence of Bob Hoskins.
The whole puppet thing soon becomes wearing in the extreme, however. Plenty of commentators have drawn parallels between the character and Gibson's recent personal difficulties, and indeed they're so obvious that I hardly need to add more.
Certainly the actor's performance is respectable enough, and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone) adds watchability in a parallel plot involving Walter's college student son (Anton Yelchin), whom she pays to do some of her course work.
But The Beaver's overriding problem is that it falls between two stools: the ludicrousness of the puppet device makes it hard to take the character's problems seriously, yet neither does it work as black comedy.
I assume scenes such as the one where Walter makes love with his wife (played by Foster) while wearing the beaver are intended to be amusing, but the effect is merely embarrassing.
The whole puppet thing soon becomes wearing in the extreme, however. Plenty of commentators have drawn parallels between the character and Gibson's recent personal difficulties, and indeed they're so obvious that I hardly need to add more.
But The Beaver's overriding problem is that it falls between two stools: the ludicrousness of the puppet device makes it hard to take the character's problems seriously, yet neither does it work as black comedy.
I assume scenes such as the one where Walter makes love with his wife (played by Foster) while wearing the beaver are intended to be amusing, but the effect is merely embarrassing.
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