Review: 'The Unbreakable Boy,' though based on a true story about a boy with autism and his father's struggles, comes off as false and manipulative

There must be a way, in some alternate universe, to tell the story of Austin LeRette — a boy with brittle-bone disease and autism whose perpetually sunny disposition made him a beacon of hope and positivity to all around him — that doesn’t feel phony and maudlin.

That is not the way writer-director Jon Gunn tells Austin’s story in “The Unbreakable Boy,” a saccharine slog that can’t find its way toward genuine feeling, in spite of a winning performance by Jacob Laval.

Laval’s Austin narrates the story, which starts with Austin’s father, Scott — played by perpetual man-child Zachary Levi — getting drunk at a New Year’s Eve party and then attempting to drive home with Austin and his little brother, Logan (Gavin Warren) as passengers. Then the action flashes back 13 years and change, when Scott and his buddy Joe (Drew Powell) are shopping for clothes, and Scott eyes the pretty store clerk, Teresa (Meghann Fahy).

In the telling, we see Scott and Teresa on their first three dates — and that instead of a fourth date, Teresa informs Scott that she’s pregnant, and a quickly arranged wedding soon follows. We’re also told that Joe is Scott’s imaginary friend, his sounding board for talking through his problems.

Then Austin is born, and he has the same genetic condition Teresa does — osteogenesis imperfecta, or OI, or brittle-bone disease. The condition means Austin is prone to breaking bones (we’re told he broke two ribs when the obstetrician used forceps during his birth), so the LeRettes become familiar figures at the emergency room. 

The autism diagnosis comes later, and while some of Gunn’s script (adapted from Scott LeRette’s inspirational memoir, co-written by Susy Flory) depicts Austin’s eternal optimism, far more of the story is focused on Scott’s complaints about how unprepared he was to be a dad — not just of a kid who’s got a congenital condition and a neurodivergent issue, but of any kid. 

The story also shows, with plodding deliberation, Scott’s descent into alcoholism — and it feels like the filmmakers have pulled a bait-and-switch on the audience, promising a unique inspirational story and delivering a much more mundane one. 

Then, as Gunn completes the LeRettes’ story, Austin’s story becomes as mundane as any other story about a character who’s different from everyone else. In straining to find some syrupy moralizing about the lessons Scott learns from Austin, the movie neglects showing Austin as a complete human being.

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‘The Unbreakable Boy’

★1/2

Opens Friday, February 21, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for strong thematic material, alcohol abuse, language and some violence. Running time: 109 minutes.