Shia LaBeoufwrote亲爱的男孩根据他自己作为年轻明星的童年，并扮演自己的父亲，在这里更名为“詹姆斯”。这部电影由阿尔玛·哈尔（Alma Har’el）执导，使她的故事片处女作。关于两件事亲爱的男孩是真的:希亚·拉博夫可能是太硬on himself, and Alma Har’el could be less up his ass about it. This film is bound to polarize, because its emotional core depends entirely on the audience having sympathy for a successful child star who turned into a successful movie star, who then had a series of public meltdowns of varying degrees of brattiness, and who now seems to be coming out of it as a more functional and introspective adult. Some people, no matter the context given, are just not going to have much sympathy for a person as successful as LaBeouf has been, especially when his public persona is marred by multiple outbursts of “do you know who I am” type behavior and racism. LaBeouf-the-writer seems aware of this, as亲爱的男孩首先是成年的“ Otis”（Lucas Hedges），他最低：过量喝酒，被捕，并成为几乎所有人的朋克。
亲爱的男孩splits time between adult Otis in rehab trying to work out where he got PTSD—he doesn’t believe he has it because what is so bad about his life?—and young Otis (Noah Jupe) working as a child actor while living with his father, a former rodeo clown plagued by his own demons.亲爱的男孩在上半场最有效，将奥蒂斯（Otis）确立为冉冉升起的儿童明星，但与父亲一起在洛杉矶郊区的一家汽车旅馆过着绝对无情的生活。电影的前半部分真实佛罗里达项目氛围，如果只有穆恩（Moonee）是迪士尼明星。
Jupe有效地眼神和悲伤，但是尽管Otis是个孩子，但Laboeuf显然饿死了，但Laboeuf避免了他的笔来自怜，Har’el可以很好地管理语气。她的相机观察了奥蒂斯和詹姆斯之间的好时刻，并以同样的坦率坦率地观察到，并没有避开不良的，也不夸张（小）好。有两个特别有效的场景，其中一个奥蒂斯想象着他在场景中获得的表演父母的感情代替了他与父亲的实际互动，而他与他在汽车旅馆中与邻居女孩（FKA Twigs）结合在一起（FKA Twigs）在边缘不当的内夜期间。很容易看出这个孩子太年轻，开始混合爱，性和舒适，以及如何与他失控的成人行为联系在一起。
But亲爱的男孩随着年轻人和老年奥蒂斯（Otis）与詹姆斯（James）寻求和平，开始在后半段开始旋转。Labeouf伸手打出一场拍拍，与电影的早期部分的情感混乱相矛盾，Har’el跟随他离开了悬崖，放松了语气，以再次拥抱幻想，这再次与早期的现实主义背道而驰。Labeouf不再欠我们他的故事，而不是他愿意说的，但是有两个独特的音调在起作用亲爱的男孩and they don’t quite mesh. Most of亲爱的男孩这是对这个故事的简单明了的讲述，尽管它来回切断了及时的努力，但作家或导演没有兴奋的繁荣来提出自怜。但是在最后，它需要一个自我放纵的元转弯，只能重申Labeouf制作我们正在观看的电影的意图。你能原谅我吗？通过使其成为电影中现实的一部分来处理类似的时刻，但亲爱的男孩元时刻以幻想序列出现，危险地接近“这是一个梦想”领域，直到这部电影一直投资于坚韧的现实。
亲爱的男孩is more than just an indulgence by Shia LaBeouf, though it is rooted in his lived experience. By completely excising any hint of glamour, the film stays away from aggrandizing a system that tolerates the neglect and occasional abuse of a child, and also makes the film not at all about the life of a child star and very much about the life of an addict’s son, who is also an addict. Much of亲爱的男孩坚定不移，似乎是愿望实现。我想这是一部电影的自然结果，讲述一个成年儿子与不完美，令人失望的父亲达成协议，尽管如此，他还是牵着将他塑造成一个巨大成功的成年人。
