Walter Black, the head of a failing toy company, is deeply depressed. His marriage to Meredith is broken and his oldest son, Porter, hates him. Walter then adopts a beaver hand-puppet as his sole means of communicating.
The acting throughout -- Foster, Lawrence, Yelchin -- is superb, and this may well be Gibson's finest performance, just as it's Foster's most balanced job of directing.
For a film about the real problem of mental illness, it never feels authentic. Depression is not something neatly tied up. If this is meant as an allegory, it's vague and unconvincing.
