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Master of Puppet

Puppets, like dolls and clowns, can be either delighting or menacing. And thankfully Mel Gibson has the talent to pull both qualities off simultaneously. "The Beaver" is a welcome reminder of Gibson the Academy Award-winning actor, not the tabloid-selling train wreck.

Walter Black (Mel Gibson) is a depressed toy company CEO, downward spiraling in suburbia. After inevitably being thrown out by his wife, Black finds a beaver hand puppet in a liquor store dumpster. Awakened by the beaver after a tragicomic hotel suicide attempt, the puppet is henceforth his constant companion.

Though it's impossible not to conflate Mel Gibson's private life with that of his character, this initially distracting background meta-noise is soon drowned out as Gibson gives voice to the beaver (in a kind of Australian/Cockney mix). Abandoning any attempt at ventriloquism, Gibson displays real skill as a Puppeteer, and the beaver becomes a character in its own right (addressed simply as "The Beaver").

Walter's conflicted wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) welcomes her upbeat husband back (who claims the hand puppet is by doctor's orders) but sensibly would also like to get rid of the vermin on his arm. Also directing, Foster brings a light but steady hand to both roles.

Walter is not so much talking through The Beaver as taking orders from it. When Meredith tries bringing him back to his pre-beaver reality, or Walter tries to talk to her in his own voice, the resulting struggle for Walter's ego reveals that the puppet is pulling the strings.

"Haven't I given you everything you wanted?" asks The Beaver. And Walter does get his company on the right financial track (through a new and less-than- convincing beaver kit toy), has kinky makeup sex with his wife, which is technically a threesome if you include the ever-present beaver (ahem), and re-bonds with his youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) who readily accepts the reality of the hand puppet as only a child can.

Walter's relationship with his older son Porter (Anton Yelchin) remains strained, in part due to their similarities (Porter is also struggling to find his own voice and break free, a parallel made not so subtly by his repeated head-banging against the wall). Porter's classmate and love-interest, Norah (Jennifer Lawrence) has her own demons and issues with self-expression. These tidy subplots fit together a little too neatly to hold much interest, like a manmade beaver dam.

Although making some absurd stops and taking several dark detours, "The Beaver" is essentially a conventional family drama. Given the film's almost unclassifiable nature, maybe "The Platypus" would have been a more appropriate title.