Points for honesty: Being Charlie was co-written by director Rob Reiner’s son Nick, based on his own experiences dealing with substance abuse. The making of Being Charlie was doubtless a therapeutically beneficial exchange between father and son—but despite insights into life at a rehab center and the strum of a few emotional chords, Charlie is more infuriating than constructive.
When we meet him, Charlie (Nick Robinson) is escaping the latest in a string of rehab centers. His freedom is short-lived, and scenes depicting his life at his next rehab center—complete with group therapy, advice from his counselor (Common), and joking among clients (which, unwisely, devolve into fat-shaming and homophobia)—feel authentic, clearly drawn from the younger Reiner’s first-person experiences.
But while Charlie is charming, he’s impossible to sympathize with: He steals Oxycontin from an elderly, working-class cancer victim in the very first scene, for crying out loud, and that’s with six months’ sobriety.