“The Peanut Butter Falcon” was made for August. The movie, a soulful gem about the connection between a man with Down Syndrome and someone who believes his future has been discarded by his past, has a dog-days-of-summer feel to it—it’s unvarnished by needless complexity and through-lined with a potent tenderness as deeply felt as the humid environments Zak and Tyler walk, swim and float through on their journey.
At a time when young filmmakers are churning out ambitious genre fare, directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz (also the film’s writers) have opted for the simple and endearing in their feature debut, the kind of American tale with a remarkable warmth that shines in its attraction to the seemingly unremarkable.
One of the more prominent roles by an actor with Down Syndrome in recent years, Zack Gottsagen plays Zak in “Peanut Butter Falcon” with enough energy to keep the lights on at a power plant. But at movie’s start, Zak can only focus that energy on one thing—breaking out of the assisted living facility he’s forced to stay in.
His family is unable to “provide adequate supervision,” Zak is told by Eleanor – the caretaker played by Dakota Johnson looking out for his interests as best she can – and the pained recognition on Gottsagen’s face is all we need to know about what fuels Zak’s dream to become a wrestler, a dream fueled by old VHS tapes of the Saltwater Redneck and the wrestling academy he supposedly runs not too far away.
At the same time we meet Tyler (a scruffy-faced Shia LaBeouf), the bluest of blue-collar workers forced to not only leave his job but also his home after making some questionable decisions. Like Zak, Tyler is a man desperately searching for change. Unlike Zak, he’s lacking the same optimistic verve about his outlook (some brief flashbacks later in the movie show why Tyler feels so detached from the world around him).
As the manifest destiny of the movies require, Tyler and Zak eventually find their way to each other, with different pursuers on their tail and a need to stay out of sight initially keeping them together.
A bond is formed and – when Tyler recognizes Zak and his familiar affinity for rule-breaking of the mostly-harmless kind –so is a comradery. And, smartly, Nilson and Schwartz write Tyler as someone who never for a second is unable to look past Zak’s Down Syndrome, rendering the connection even more believable.
The friendship at the heart of “Peanut Butter Falcon” is an incredibly effective one, richly realized by LaBeouf and Gottsagen with a butterscotch charm that never feels hokey, and still resonates even when the movie struggles to balance tones elsewhere.
The core duo grow increasingly close as Tyler helps Zak find the Saltwater Redneck and realize his dream—one of the film’s best scenes shows the duo training so Zak is up to snuff when they meet the wrestler. Rocky Balboa would be inspired.
It’s sweet stuff that any person with a heart will gravitate towards, but it’s enhanced by the ways Nilson and Schwartz are able to conjure up an unspoken tension from the contrast between Zak’s joviality and Tyler’s world-weariness; you get the sense that what Zak wants is where Tyler has been.
Even if the latter has come away with nothing to show for it up to this point, Zak is hell-bent on trying anyway—on experiencing something of his own accord. Human connection may be the common denominator for a life, but agency is evidence of having lived.
“I can’t be a hero because I have Down Syndrome,” Zak insists to Tyler early on. Nilson and Schwartz’s smart script injects the line not only with earnest yearning, but with heartbreak. Zack has already shown all the qualities of being a hero in his own story – his individuality, his taking charge of his own life – and we only want him to recognize that for himself, as does Tyler, in a performance as tender as anything LaBeouf has ever done.
This is a bluegrass, banjo-twanging story of friendship that never mistakes its representational narrative as an excuse for self-congratulation, but it’s also a story about the promises we make—to ourselves, those under our wing, our newfound friends, our makeshift families.
Eleanor’s role in the story eventually brings other shades to Tyler, as well. “I’m sure I could find some reason to arrest you,” she says when catching up to the tattered and mud-streaked pair—in those words lie all we need to know about how society views Tyler, and about how it devalues him.
He may not be so different from Zak in that regard, and Eleanor – played by Johnson with an appropriate blend of incredulity and slow acceptance – eventually comes to see him as he really is, though their soon-to-blossom romance doesn't greatly enhance anything around it.
One of the movie’s many strengths is its consistent ability to keep Zak and Tyler on an equal playing field; though the story revolves more around Zak reaching his personal goals, they naturally come to be Tyler’s as well.
They never outshine each other, and Nilson and Schwartz never direct them to—one of the moments in “Peanut Butter Falcon” that has stayed with me the most is a glance of recognition between Tyler and Zak that they can help lead each other to some kind of fulfillment.
Tyler is helping Zack get on a path he’s been searching for; Zak in return teaches us we aren’t defined by the paths we’ve walked. They may be companions for each other, but in this modern re-imagining of the Huckleberry Finn story, they are teachers for us, in a time when it seems we need them most.
Not everything about the final act of “Peanut Butter Falcon” works—it’s final half-hour is its most overtly sentimental stretch – but it’s still satisfying to see the fruits of Tyler and Zak’s friendship, as well as the idea of where companionship can take us when it’s the last thing we thought we needed. Even if it is a little fantastical, it’s the stuff of heroes.