The Best Movie on Netflix that You've Never Seen
Every once and a while, you stumble across a movie that is an absolute hidden gem. It doesn’t do great critically, does nothing in the box office, and no one knows anything about it, but it’s still a dam good movie. I, along with the other Above Average Joes, was lucky enough to stumble across such a gem. I have watched a movie so compelling that it will have you laughing, crying, jumping, and crying (but this time you are crying cause your happy). I don’t know if it was a result of low expectation or the excitement of something extremely different, but this movie blew my mind. This movie is The Beaver.
Bear with me here while I give you a basic summary of the plot. The story follows the life of the Black Family. Walter Black, played by crazy Mel, is the CEO of a large toy company, that’s stock is dropping drastically. Walter starts the movie with a case of very serious depression and resorts to using a beaver puppet to distance himself from his “toxic qualities”. Walter talks through the Beaver and does everything as the Beaver. Throughout the film, Walter continues to rely more and more on the Beaver. Meanwhile, he is dealing with a wife that is tired of bending over backwards to fix him, two sons, one of which can’t stand to be near him, and the common everyday issues of living life with a beaver puppet on your hand. This isn’t a spoiler this is literally how the movie opens.
The viewer of the movie gets taken on the journey with Walter, who is trying to deal with his mental illness while putting the broken pieces of the dam that is his family back together. Sounds ridiculous right? Well it is but it’s also amazing. This movie has literally everything. The plot has more twists then Dorney Park rollercoaster. You know how you can usually tell how a movie is going to go, so you call it out to your friends to show them how smart you are. I did that…. I looked really dumb. This movie sets you up to think it’s going to play out the way of typical Drama Movie tropes, but then it just swerves in a completely different direction. The characters are great, and fully developed. The cast is just a complete A-list of stars including: Jodie Foster (who also directed this masterpiece), Mel Gibson, Anton Yelchin, and Jennifer Lawrence, back when she cared about quality acting.
The Beaver, unfortunately, has an average score on rotten tomatoes, didn’t receive any major award show nominations, and is only rated two stars on Netflix. It will never be considered a classic, but this movie is a master piece. I implore everyone to take an hour and a half out of their day to watch this movie. Hollywood needs more movies like this one: unique, well made, and absolutely amazing.