Beautiful Boy is an unconventional love story that explores the journey of a married couple on the verge of separation who must live with unimaginable heartbreak, and find healing through the darkest days of their lives.
Bill (Michael Sheen) and Kate (Maria Bello) hopelessly try to find some hint of an explanation after finding out that their only son committed a mass shooting at his university before taking his own life.
They struggle numbly through the funeral, the media onslaught, and the awkward pity from relatives and friends. Their already strained marriage is tested as they realize all they have left with each other is their shared grief and confusion--and the unfortunate legacy of their son. This life-altering event forces Bill and Kate to face their feelings of guilt, rage, blame, self-discovery, and ultimately hope - so that they can finally see each other and their chance for happiness again with clear eyes.

Director's Statement by Shawn Ku
Before I wrote this script, I suffered an unusual tragedy: a friend of mine died in my home. He died of natural causes, but it was extremely unexpected.
Because I was the last person to see and speak with him, I found myself in an awkward central position among his grieving family. I was the first person to break the news. I had his cell phone and received those calls just to hear his voice. I was the one his parents clung to for any sign that his troubles and disappointments were released before the end.
Some time had passed since my friend's death when Michael Armbruster and I decided to write a story about a relationship - one that appeared perfect on the outside, but where neither person knew the other as deeply as he/she thought. Then the Virginia Tech shooting happened. My sister called me immediately.
Our parents had met and married while at Virginia Tech. My sister was born there. And add in the fact that the shooter was Asian… well, though we suffered no direct loss from the incident, my family was rocked.
Mike's and my script took a turn. We decided to use a campus shooting and yet write nothing about it. It would be a story of two people we rarely empathize with in such a circumstance - two people who more often than not get the brunt of all the blame for the tragedy: the parents.
I don't believe in monsters. I have always been one to blame society for the "creation" of our real life villains: murderers, thieves, terrorists and especially campus shooters. So what better way to prove that than for me to step into their shoes? What better way to make that point than to base these parents on my parents?
My parents' relationship has always been less than ideal. And it has undeniably affected who I am, just as our lead characters' relationship has profoundly impacted their son. But I do not blame my parents for the bad choices I have made in my life. Nor do I think Bill and Kate are to blame for what Sam did. They are doing the best that they can to raise and love their son, but their own issues just get in the way. They are living under the same judgments and expectations, in that same societal boiling pot. All three are crying out to connect, to be seen and heard. They just don't know how to do it. They are afraid to take that big step to be open and vulnerable. And unfortunately in our story, it takes a tragedy to break down those walls.
In film, casting is always important. And for a piece like this, that is especially true. The difficulty for a small film is getting past the gatekeepers.
Maria Bello had always been someone I had pictured in the role of Kate. I could see a complicated person behind her eyes who I knew would be perfect for the part. So even after we hit the first roadblock trying to get to her, we kept trying.
Michael Sheen had quickly captured my attention in The Queen and Frost/Nixon. It was clear to me that he was a brilliant actor who could do anything. Initially my collaborators were concerned that he might not be able to do an American accent. But I convinced them that the story was the same whether Bill was American-born or a British transplant. In fact, in all of our discussions prior to shooting, I never once brought the subject up with Michael. It wasn't until he showed up on the first day of production, speaking like an American, that I knew where Bill was from.
All I knew was that these two actors were the ones I wanted. I just had a feeling that their unexpected pairing would be magical.
When I finally got word that Maria had read the script and wanted to meet me, I prepared myself for what I assumed would be a hardcore pitch to convince her to do the movie and trust this novice director. But once we sat down, the first thing she said was, "So when are we gonna make this movie?" She was in.
The same was true for Michael. He was in London, in the middle of doing press for a film when we got on the phone together - very, very late one night - and we had an instantly deep conversation about life and self-esteem and societal pressures. It was clear that he had already begun to envision himself in the role.
With our emotionally demanding script and extremely tight shooting schedule, I knew it was important that our actors walk onto the set the first day knowing their characters intimately well. With only 18 days to shoot the entire film, there was very little time, if any, to search and explore on set. They had to be Bill and Kate from the get-go.
Though our lead characters have been married for 20 years, they no longer know each other, really. Their relationship is not based on communication. They are trapped in an almost mindless routine. The fact that they live "together - in isolation" was a big influence on how I decided to rehearse. We didn't work on the script or dialogue at all. I spent a good portion of our time, alone with each actor - examining our own relationships and why they fell apart. We discussed our thoughts on parenting, intimacy and violence. And of course, we talked about their characters' inner and outer lives.
Rehearsals with Maria and Michael together were primarily discussions about the routine of Bill's and Kate's interactions in the present day. But we also hypothesized what their relationship was like when they first met and fell in love and got married and had a child.
Visually, I wanted the film to feel very real and ordinary - not overly calculated and posed. I wanted that feeling of being an innocent bystander caught in the middle of an unexpected argument.
Director of Photography Michael Fimognari and I planned extensively how to achieve this "unplanned" look. We wanted the style to feel spontaneous and impromptu. We wanted the camera to have "no idea" what was going to happen in the scene, reacting late to entrances and dialogue and noises. Quite often I would block the scenes with the actors and only tell Michael very loosely what area of the room they would be in. Our intention was to cover every scene in one shot, in a documentary style as if the action were happening for real and we have to capture it as best as we can 'cause it ain't gonna happen again. Then we would vary our camera movements in each take to get coverage.
Michael lit spaces rather than shots, to give himself the freedom to accommodate this camera style. We used the contrast of darkness and light to create separation between Bill and Kate and to accentuate the distance in their relationship.
The climactic scene in the motel room was seven pages long, and we had just one day to shoot it. I thought it would be terrible to break the scene up into sections and focus on each separately; that would diffuse any potential for "magic" to happen. Film actors so rarely get a chance to just "run" with their characters for any significant period of time. It is always a series of short sprints. I wanted this scene to have emotional continuity - to have momentum, like riding a sled down an icy hill, slowly picking up speed, going faster and faster, until you are whizzing out of control with no way to stop but to crash headfirst into a snowbank (which I have done, by the way).
Michael Fimognari and I discussed the complexity and difficulties of shooting this very long scene in "one." In a small, real-life motel room, it wasn't going to be easy… but it was certainly worth the challenge. Keep in mind that the room had two queen size beds and a nightstand, a table and chairs, a long dresser, a standing cabinet and TV stand. And aside from Michael Fimognari, there was a focus puller and boom operator trying to hide behind a roving camera. And that roving camera was going to be looking about 270 degrees around the room. That's a tightly packed set; there wasn't even room for me to be in there with them.
We spent the entire first half of the day blocking the scene with the actors and Michael and his "shadows" - choreographing the intricate dance around the room and around the furniture - and still trying to maintain our loose, spontaneous shooting style.
Let me just say that when you reach lunch and you still haven't shot an inch of film, the producers start to panic. But Michael and I were confident.
Once we were finally rehearsed and ready to shoot, we had a few takes where we had to stop midway because of a sound issue. Now I was starting to panic; I was worried that we were "shooting our wad," so to speak, and not even capturing it on film. I knew that emotionally, the actors would only be able to do the scene several times. And with these false starts, they were starting to get frustrated - like amped-up racehorses locked behind a starting gate, itching to be let loose. I was scared that by the time we got our problems all ironed out, we'd get to that place where the actors would have to "push" and all of the rawness and truth in the scene would be lost.
But then what tends to occur in these situations did indeed occur; everything came together and magic happened. And we captured it on film. It is a scene that still gets me every time I see it. It captures the brilliance of our actors, the immense talent of our camera department, and even the genius of our editor (because you come away thinking the entire thing is just one continuous shot). It is the critical moment in our film when all the things that our lead characters have been keeping bottled up for days, and even years, finally burst out. It encapsulates our movie.
At first glance this movie appears to be about tragedy, but I think this is actually a story of hope. We all have fears and parts of ourselves that we deny and hide and defend desperately. And ultimately I wonder why. Because if we all have them, then they shouldn't be so terrible and painful to admit. And yet it is just ingrained in us to continue on as we do… until something forces us to change.

Shawn Ku - Writer and Director
Writer-director Shawn Ku wowed the Sundance Film Festival with his student short film, Pretty Dead Girl, which went on to win awards at festivals throughout the world. It is currently being developed into a full-length stage production with the Araca Group ("Urinetown," "Wicked").
He was signed to direct at Warner Bros while still a student at USC Film School and was later nominated for a DGA Award for his work as director and co-choreographer of "The American Mall," an MTV musical film by the producers of the Disney Channel's "High School Musical" trilogy. He has worked with such respected producers as Marc Platt, Michael London and Christine Vachon.
Shawn earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Harvard University, but left the sciences to become a Broadway performer in Tony Award-winning shows "Fosse," "Miss Saigon," and "The King and I," among others. As an actor, he won a Jury Prize at AFI Fest for his performance in the lead role of the internationally acclaimed feature Samsara, which premiered at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival on 9/11.

Michael Armbruster - Writer
Michael Armbruster started his career in chocolate. But after five years of making candy commercials as the head of marketing for a division of Nestle, he hung up his suit, went back to school and started writing.
While at UCLA, his father-son road-trip drama End of Sentence won the UCLA Showcase Award and later went on to become a semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowships. In addition, the comedy short he wrote, Collectibles, won a student DGA award in 2008 and played at festivals all over the world, and another original feature spec, Bohemian Nut Roll, placed 2nd out of 4000 submissions at the Austin Film Festival and has since been optioned.
He has had several other projects under option, including the comedy Tiny Dancers which is currently with Michael London/Groundswell (Sideways, The Family Stone), and he has developed original screenplays with Larger Than Life Productions (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) and Michael Taylor (Phenomenon, Bottle Rocket). In addition, he has been hired for writing assignments by Disney, Tim Allen and Gold Circle Films (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) among others, tackling stories from the New York Philharmonic to the Texas drag races. In addition to his MFA from UCLA, Michael holds an MBA from Harvard.

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