Review: Our Hero, Balthazar

Who gets to be the hero?

Our Hero, Balthazar is the riotous debut feature from writer-director Oscar Boyson. It takes a macabre premise—a lonely, attention-starved Manhattan rich kid who becomes obsessed with stopping a school shooter in Texas—and gleefully subverts it. A subject that practically begs to be mishandled is instead approached with remarkable confidence and care by Boyson and co-writer Ricky Camilleri, a confidence that only grows stronger in the hands of Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield, whose audacious performances anchor the film.

Words: Beth Bennett

Images: Courtesy of WG Pictures

Few films about teenagers ever seem to truly understand teenagers. Dialogue is all hokey pseudo-TikTok speak, while character arcs swing between hormone-fuelled romps and conservatively reductive morality tales. Our Hero, Balthazar is not one of those films. Instead, it leans into the youthful awkwardness of Jaeden Martell's presence, using it to tell a modern parable about loneliness, isolation and masculine performance.

Perhaps we should have expected this. Anchored by Biblical names that somehow feel both perfectly appropriate and strangely out of time, Our Hero, Balthazar was never going to be another coming-of-age film preaching lessons to teenagers. Instead, it seems to speak directly to adults.

It asks:

Do you see what's happening to our children?

Do you see how you can help?

Do you see what loneliness can do?

Ultimately, this is a story about two men—boys, really—searching for connection in a time when we're supposedly more connected than ever. We can reach anyone instantly, wherever they are, yet our IRL (as the film puts it) experiences feel increasingly disconnected, fragmented almost. Balthy wants a pretty girl who understands the cultural anxieties that have led to a loneliness he may not even realise he shares. Solomon simply wants someone to share his interests and tell him he's doing a good job.

Their meeting is ridiculous and electric, brought to life through performances that sizzle with the nuance of actors who trust both the story and their director. For one beautiful moment, you find yourself thinking: this could be a love story.

Alas, Our Hero, Balthazar remains anchored to its namesake. Balthy teeters between the validation of public heroism and the quieter comfort of Solomon's friendship—and, more significantly, the AR slung over his shoulder. As he gradually comes to realise, the fractured attention of a handful of people in the real world simply doesn't feel as intoxicating as the endless validation offered by the virtual one.

In Cory Finley's Thoroughbreds—a perfect complement to Our Hero, Balthazar—Amanda (Olivia Cooke) watches a classic Hollywood film with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip. Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) is immediately affected, until Amanda suddenly drops the performance and turns to face her, expressionless. Confused, Lily listens as Amanda explains "The Technique": consciously mimicking the physical responses to get you crying. Tighten your throat. Quiver your lip. Soon the tears will come.

For a sleeper hit, Thoroughbreds proved astoundingly influential with this sequence. Whether knowingly or not, the techniques deployed by today's so-called "cryfluencers" follow Amanda's method almost beat for beat. It's exactly how Balthazar prepares before pressing record.

The thing is, though, Amanda is a sociopath. She uses The Technique to fit in, to perform emotion when it's expected.

So where does that leave Balthazar? Is it fair to draw the same conclusion? Or is he simply a child whose need for attention—for love—isn't being met, and who seeks it in the same way so many of us now do: the quickest, most convenient way possible.

Attention through performance. Performative moral alignment. Performative crying. Performative heroism.

There will inevitably be people eager to dismiss this as a trait unique to "a certain generation". While many young people undoubtedly engage in these behaviours, you don't have to look very far to find thirty, forty or fifty-year-olds doing exactly the same thing. We all crave attention—for ourselves, for our causes. Whether it's an Upper East Side teenager crying about an injustice in a country they'll never visit, with little intention of doing anything meaningful to help; or a sixty-year-old retiree posting tearful videos about the sanctity of marriage while quietly ignoring the cracks in her own.

Manipulation doesn't always feel like manipulation, but somewhere, deep down, you'll know when your heart isn't really in it. Who cares, though? It feels good.

And maybe that's what modern-day heroism has become: stumbling into a good deed in designer trainers, with no evidence loud enough to question your motives. You've raised awareness. You've stopped a shooter. All eyes on you.

This is an outrageously funny film, packed with whip-smart jibes and a warped take on the upstairs/downstairs dynamic. That humour gently coaxes the audience towards the film's central thesis before delivering it like a punch to the gut:

Loneliness breeds apathy. Apathy breeds violence. Violence breeds loneliness.

When was the last time you reached out to a friend?