The Peanut But­ter Fal­con

MISHAWAKA, IN—“The Peanut But­ter Fal­con” is one of those films I heard about for a while now and did­n’t know what to think just from read­ing the ti­tle be­fore it de­buted at SXSW and won the Au­di­ence Award. When the first trailer dropped a while ago, it sur­prised me to know that the story will feel rem­i­nis­cent of a mod­ern “Huck­le­berry Finn”– type story these two char­ac­ters go on. Bet­ter yet, it was a sur­prise to know that those who have a heart will eas­ily fall for one of the best films of the year. 

What’s the Story: Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is a 22-year-old man deal­ing with Down syn­drome liv­ing in a nurs­ing home be­cause he does not have any kind of fam­ily. But one night, he runs away in an at­tempt to meet his hero, The Salt Wa­ter Red­neck and at­tend this wrestling school to be­come a pro­fes­sional wrestler him­self. Along the way, Zak meets Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), a down on his luck fish­er­man who’s on the run from a lo­cal crab fish­er­man named Dun­can (John Hawkes) and de­cides to help him out in get­ting to his des­ti­na­tion with­out any harm. 

I have to give a ton of credit to the di­rec­to­r­ial de­but of both Tyler Nil­son and Michael Schwartz for helm­ing a won­der­ful com­edy-drama that’s han­dled per­fectly with the right amount of heart. At no point did this feel like I was watch­ing these ac­tors in­ter­act with each other, but, in­stead, I saw them as real hu­man be­ings get­ting to know each other and dis­cover one’s true self. This also has some of the best cin­e­matog­ra­phy of the year so far show­cas­ing the North Car­olina coun­try­side with beauty. 

This is the first role Gottsagen has ever got­ten, and I truly hope he has a great ca­reer af­ter this comes out be­cause he was amaz­ing. When you have a char­ac­ter who is just love­able and hi­lar­i­ous with­out re­al­iz­ing it, that is an au­to­matic win. Mainly for the fact that he is not just a man with down syn­drome, but a real per­son who is per­fectly op­ti­mistic in ways that are un­der­stand­able. 

LaBeouf is­n’t ex­actly an ac­tor I am a fan of from time to time. Yet, when he is com­mit­ted to a role, he does a great job. It is when he is act­ing un­lik­able in per­son when I al­ways tend to dis­like him. But in “The Peanut But­ter Fal­con”, LaBeouf may as well have given the best per­for­mance I have ever seen from him. Also, Dakota John­son as Eleanor, the so­cial worker at the nurs­ing home search­ing for Zak, was able to branch out and do some­thing good that is not “Fifty Shades.” 

At the film’s core is a fas­ci­nat­ing story about friend­ship. It was giv­ing me a rea­son to care about both Zak and Tyler, all thanks to a great, orig­i­nal script from the di­rec­tors. At first, Tyler does­n’t want to help Zak out, but un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances, he does even­tu­ally, and it blos­soms into this broth­erly love that I bought. Prob­a­bly my fa­vorite scene is this in­ter­ac­tion at night be­tween the two of them, and Zak asks Tyler if he is a bad guy for the way he is. Such a won­der­ful scene. 

With the fact the main char­ac­ter is deal­ing with Down syn­drome, it was the best idea to not make him feel like a lit­tle kid due to his con­di­tion. At this age and knowl­edge on most things, he should not come across any­body who wants to treat him poorly or does not be­lieve he can take care of him­self. There are mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions when peo­ple used the “r” word to de­scribe some­thing when there is a dif­fer­ent al­ter­na­tive makes you lose re­spect for that per­son. 

I sure hope “The Peanut But­ter Fal­con” does­n’t get over­looked when Os­car sea­son is around the cor­ner. The chances of this get­ting a nom­i­na­tion for Best Orig­i­nal Screen­play does not seem likely; it de­pends on what else comes out. But the least it can do is hope for the In­de­pen­dent Spirit Awards to show some love. All that said, this is such a bril­liantly writ­ten, funny, and beau­ti­ful look­ing dram­edy that cap­tures the mean­ing of friend­ship and chas­ing your goals to their fullest. If this ends up on my best list of the year, that is some­thing to be happy about. 

Grade: A-