This amiable buddy movie was a hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Zak (Zack Gottsagen) has Down’s syndrome and has been in a nursing home for two years when he stages an escape, aided by an older inmate (Bruce Dern). Hiding himself upon a fishing boat owned by Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), he is on a mission to attend a wrestling training camp he has seen on an aged VHS tape and become the titular Peanut Butter Falcon. As the duo team up, they are pursued by nursing home volunteer Eleanor (Dakota Johnson). One of the rare films to allow a person with a disability centre stage, Gottsagen’s multilayered, often hilarious performance is at the heart of this winning story of finding yourself.
★★★★ “LaBeouf at his best” - Beth Webb, Empire
★★★★ “LaBeouf is scruffily compelling, while the pinpoint comic timing of Gottsagen should be a lesson to any drab corners of the film industry still resisting disabled actors” - Danny Leigh, Financial Times
★★★★ “Perhaps against the odds, this shambling buddy movie really works” - Wendy Ide, The Observer
