This is without question one of Mel Gibsons finest movies to date. I was saddened to see that I was one of only four people in the theatre during the showing. The public is in danger of allowing the recent press regarding Mr. Gibson to deprive them of an outstanding film about the effects and outcome of mental illness on a large spectrum of people.This movie had an optimistic conclusion- an unexpected conclusion, but optimistic none the less. I not only enjoyed this movie, but called my daughter in Boston to make sure she saw this feature. She is going to see it today with her friends on my recommendation. Fantastic film! I surely hope that Mr. Gibson and Ms. Foster continue the creative partnership. This film was A+.

If anyone coul depict the hellish decent into mental illness, it would be Mel! Say what you want about him, but the man is brilliant both as an actor and a director/producer.... I noticed one reviewer said the movie was too "depressing"...HELLLLLLLOOOOO, it's about mental illness....nothing to happy about that but it was portrayed so sensitively, esp by Jodi Foster who plays the long suffering wife.... I can only say GO SEE IT! IMHO

Think what you like about Mel Gibson but he gives a powerful performance in The Beaver. Jodie Foster is at the top of her form as a director and gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as Gibson's wife. Anyone who has a family member who suffers from mental illness will agree this story rings true. It is in the same vein as Ordinary People--touching, hopeful, funny, haunting and unsettling.

It is a very engaging, intelligent movie. Inspite of his current woes, Mel Gibson is still a brilliant actor, and I am still a fan. Much credit to Jodie Foster for her role both acting and directing, as she is becoming one of the great actors of our time as well. I believe this is to clinical depression almost what "A Beautiful Mind" was to schizophrenia. although it wasn't the most powerful role Gibson has ever played, It took his brilliance to make us take a man wearing a beaver puppet seriously. It is a serious movie which I await the inputs from the professional psychiatric community as to its accuracy (portraying mental illness). And for Jodie, - it was not sentimental (which she said at the premiere that she doesn't like sentimentality in such subject matter). Not a big picture. But a big, understated, well portrayed message about people who suffer from mental illness. It also deals very well with how we cope with life's difficulties.

I would not have thought it possible to make a genuinely funny movie about manic depression. Well done: engaging from start to finish. Gibson was very good, and he was the reason I was hesitant to see this. Wonderfully told, well paced, cinema befits style. Not for children or folks with untreated severe depression: the use of power tools when manic could not have been rendered more subttley and yet was gruesome.