Movie Review: "The Peanut Butter Falcon" Has a Cast That Just Gels

The Shia LaBeouffaissance is real.

There isn’t a literal 'peanut butter falcon' in The Peanut Butter Falcon, but true to the title, it’s a sticky-sweet film that soars on the strength of its easy-breezy cast.

The picture stars Zack Gottsagen as Zak, a young man with Down syndrome who plots an escape from the retirement home in which he resides. After he makes a break for it, concerned social worker Eleanor (a soothing Dakota Johnson) travels across North Carolina to find him. She comes close early in the movie too—though, I suppose, that would have started the credits rolling at about the 30-minute mark.

Thankfully, on-the-run fisherman-thief Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) throws Eleanor off their tail, and works to fulfil a promise he made after discovering Zak hiding on his boat: get him to a wresting school run by The Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). The adventure continues!

Writer-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz developed the story after meeting Gottsagen—who has Down syndrome in real life too—and modelled this Huckleberry Finn pastiche on Zack’s own quest to become a professional actor. Here, he wants to be a pro wrestler (named 'The Peanut Butter Falcon'). The feature is not casual about Down syndrome, but it’s thoughtfully treated as secondary to Zak’s personality, drive and desires. Gottsagen's performance is deviously funny, and the film is never condescending towards him, thanks largely to Johnson’s comforting aura, and LaBeouf in extremely appealing big-brother mode. Church, in his brief turn, is also warmly dad-like.

Esteemed ringers like John Hawkes, Bruce Dern, Jon Bernthal and even Mick Foley (AKA Mankind! AKA Cactus Jack!! AKA Dude Love!!!) all make appearances, highlighting just how much trust Nilson and Schwartz earned with their script, and how much confidence all were happy to put in Gottsagen as a leading man. And they were all right. The Peanut Butter Falcon is a smooth raft-ride that intermittently pauses to revel in Nigel Bluck’s pastoral cinematography, or to let the performances breathe, and I was happy to be on it.

4/5

In Australian cinemas now. Rated M for coarse language.