movie reviews joe bell

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 73% Blink Twice Link to Blink Twice
• 96% Strange Darling Link to Strange Darling
• 85% Between the Temples Link to Between the Temples

New TV Tonight

• 96% Only Murders in the Building: Season 4
• 100% Terminator Zero: Season 1
• 92% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• 83% City of God: The Fight Rages On: Season 1
• 73% Kaos: Season 1
• -- Here Come the Irish: Season 1
• -- K-Pop Idols: Season 1
• -- Horror's Greatest: Season 1
• -- After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 92% Bad Monkey: Season 1
• 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
• 78% Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• 100% Pachinko: Season 2
• 33% The Accident: Season 1
• 96% Industry: Season 3
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 92% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2 Link to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

The Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video to Watch Right Now (August 2024)

100 Best Netflix Series To Watch Right Now (August 2024)

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

TV Premiere Dates 2024

Your Full List of All Upcoming Marvel Movies — With Key Details!

• Trending on RT
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• Rings of Power S2 First Reviews
• Venice Film Festival
• Fall Horror Movie Preview

Joe Bell Reviews

The title implies that Joe’s story is the focus, yet the unnecessarily convoluted narrative bounces too much between past and present as well as the POVs of father (Mark Wahlberg, playing against his usual jacked, macho persona) and son (Reid Miller).

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 16, 2023

Didn’t expect to be this emotionally wrecked this morning. Mark turns in what might be one of his best performances of his career.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

The entire film is unfocused, creating a bit of a mess that left me rotating between rolling my eyes and having tears steaming out of them.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 19, 2023

The film stays in a mosaic of superficiality... it doesn't reach a reflective peak.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2022

Joe Bell is a heartbreaking film about repentance stemming from unapologetic intolerance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

It’s a movie in which the tragedy is unrelenting, and we are left to find whatever scraps of happiness we can find in the ending.

Full Review | May 20, 2022

The screenplay can feel a bit clichéd in its coming-out and grieving-parent tropes, and the cinematography, editing, and score are nothing particularly special. But they’re effective because of how of a piece they are with the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | May 10, 2022

Despite Joe Bell's heart being in the right place, this is a dreary slog.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 7, 2022

The real star here is Miller, who gives a nuanced and powerful performance in a difficult role (in fact, one of his scenes had to be trimmed after TIFF, as it was considered too disturbing).

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 13, 2022

A bearded Wahlberg certainly gives his all, but it's undermined by a fractured narrative that telegraphs its twist far too early,

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2021

In a sit-up-and-take note breakthrough performance, newcomer Reid Miller delivers a heart-wrenching portrait as Jadin Bell, a gay teen trying to live his life out loud without the harassment about "being different."

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Oct 23, 2021

It is a film which aims for and packs an emotional punch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 30, 2021

Joe Bell is a movie about soul searching, with a good message, that never quite finds its way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2021

Though armed with a noble social conscience message, the entertainment value is not there.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Sep 27, 2021

Without giving too much away, Joe Bell is an emotional, thought-provoking piece that has something to say.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 27, 2021

There's such emotional manipulation imbued that its ultimate message gets lost in the shuffle.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2021

Every time the film even considers criticizing Bell for what he's doing, it backpedals immediately for fear of noting the truth.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2021

Reid Miller's phenomenal acting cannot save the story that ran flat. I wanted to cry, I really did.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.8/5 | Sep 14, 2021

Bell is predictably woeful.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 27, 2021

Reid Miller is the breakout here, and really imbues Jadin with strength. He's never portrayed as a victim.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 18, 2021

Flawed But Complicated: ‘Joe Bell’ Stars Mark Wahlberg as a Dad on a Journey of Regret over His Dead, Gay Son

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

In January 2013, a gay 15-year-old named Jadin Bell, from La Grande, Oregon, hanged himself from a piece of playground equipment and, after being kept on life support for several weeks, died in early February that year. He was a sophomore in high school. He’d dreamed of becoming an artist, of going to New York City for college — of, at the very least, getting the hell out of La Grande. Like many queer teens before him and, it’s painful to say, many since his death, Jadin was subject to intense bullying — mistreatment that became the primary point of order of the expansive news coverage following his death. 

The coverage was motivated, in part, by the pained irony that an ostensibly more progressive nation — nudged forward from above by changing (if contested) political policies and more visibly out-and-proud celebrities and from below by a more accepting generation of young people — was still home to tragedies such as these. Much of the coverage inevitably had to confront the ways that bullying, in itself, had also changed, as technology had changed, and social lives — anonymity, access to others, video cameras and messaging apps on every phone — have played into some of our worst instincts. Jadin’s death was a big story, but not a unique one. Why some stories of this stripe loom so large over the public imagination, while others receive little to no attention, is itself complicated.

In Jadin’s case, the second leg of his story may have had something to do with it. Some months after Jadin’s death, Jadin’s father, Joe Bell, decided to walk the country in honor of his son, from his home in La Grande all the way to New York, landing where Jadin once dreamed of living out the rest of his life after high school. And giving talks, campaigning against bullying in schools, at motorcycle rallies, wherever he could, as he traveled. Joe’s following, online and in the local press, grew as he traveled. It was, for him, a journey toward healing — not only over the loss of his son in itself, but over the regrets he had as a father whose son needed him in ways that only became apparent to the elder Bell after his boy’s suicide. This story, too, ended in tragedy. Joe was struck and killed in October 2013 by a tractor trailer whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. It happened in eastern Colorado, on a rural two-lane highway. This is as far as Joe got.

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, 25 most influential creators of 2024.

Reinaldo Marcus Green’s new film is titled Joe Bell, not Jadin Bell , which maybe tells you something about its scope and intentions — but not everything. By the time the film starts, Joe, played by a grizzled Mark Wahlberg , has already been on the road for some months. Throughout, we’ll see people stop and ask to take his picture, or offer him meals — people who, being that they’re from areas in the stretch between Oregon and Colorado, are testaments to the idea that though much of the country remains committed to bigotry, there are loving, understanding people everywhere. And queer people everywhere — which, for Joe, means that this journey is made all the more morally serious, not because of the lessons he imparts to others, but by the lessons he learns on his journey, the kindness the sprouts up in seemingly unexpected places, out of people cut from the same cloth as Joe. 

The real Joe Bell had written, on Facebook: “I miss my son Jadin with all my heart and soul. I know you’re with me on this walk.” Joe Bell takes this idea and, in a way, makes it literal. From the start of the movie there’s a young man at Joe’s side — and it isn’t long before we realize that this young man is Jadin (played here by Reid Miller). What immediately stands out about the pair is their camaraderie. And Jadin’s personality. Before the movie gives us flashbacks to nine months prior, in the stretch leading up to Jadin’s death — with its scenes of bullying, fledgling romance, and familial disappointment — what we get is a snapshot of an ideal. A gay son and his father who can bond over Lady Gaga lyrics. A gay son who sits in on his father’s talks to the public and gets to offer his own critiques, pointing out the ways that Joe has settled into a pattern of preaching to the choir: The people showing up at his talks, particularly once he’s gained notoriety, already know what he’s about, and are already at minimum prepared to hear what he has to say. But what about the random homophobes in biker gear that Joe overhears spouting casual hatred in a diner, or the people — there are many of them — who have nothing to offer Joe but confrontation? These are the people, Jadin’s ghostlike fellow traveler suggests, that need to be reached. These are the people akin to his bullies. Joe had advised his son to stand up for himself in the face of such people. In the wake of Jadin’s death, it’s left to Joe to do the standing up. Will he? 

Related Stories

The sky is the limit for mark wahlberg's unhinged hitman in 'flight risk' trailer, how to watch mark wahlberg's 'arthur the king' online.

So far, this must sound like a redemption narrative. It is and it isn’t. The film is split nearly in two. It’s dominant strand is a study of Joe’s travels on the road, which are punctuated by the slim bits of contact he still has with the family left back home, particularly his wife Lola (Connie Britton), who has her own frustrations — and whose presence trains us to keep in mind the ways that Joe is, despite this mission, an imperfect man. Green’s film is absolutely attuned to the difficulties of this journey, which are not to be taken casually. The real Joe Bell, as nearly every article on the man took care to point out, had artificial knees; months into his journey, his feet were warped by blisters. The film shows him weathering harsh natural conditions, random bouts of rain, at times bitter cold, and often his setting up shop outdoors to sleep. Green’s camera makes a point of dwarfing Joe in the broad, rural mountainscapes of his journey, the long stretches of road seeming to run toward some distant nowhere, with nothing but gray sky and rocky hillsides for company. It is no wonder his mind is given to imagining that Jadin is with him: This is, as the film depicts it, a despairingly lonely journey, one in which the man’s main company is his own mind.

And in his mind he must be thinking of Jadin’s last days, and of the errors made during that time — starting, as the film does in the first of many flashbacks, with the day Jadin came out to him. It’s a curious coming-out scene, as these things go, in part because what Jadin encounters from his father is not outright, violent rejection, but rejection in the guise of jittery acceptance. Joe doesn’t exactly say in plain terms that he’s OK with Jadin being “different,” but nor does he kick him out of the house, as is the case for many. Joe instead confronts Jadin with a nervous impatience — there’s a game on; he’d rather bury this and move on — and bad advice akin to a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Sure, he’s OK with it: But also, remember when I tried to teach you boxing? (This is his advice for handling bullies.) Sure, you can join the cheerleading squad, even if you’re the only boy to do so — but please, don’t practice on the front lawn in front of everyone. (What’s Joe going to do during actual football games, in which his son will have to appear in front of everyone?) The coming-out ends on a sour note which, merely by the way the film sets it up and lingers over it, we can discern is a source of shame for Joe. “He knows I love him,” he says to Lola. Then, to Jadin: “I love you. You know that. Are we done here now?”

That’s the other strand of the movie — these flashbacks, these moments. It is the better material for so many reasons, but not least among them is its attempt to reconstruct some sense of Jadin’s life, which even much of the press about Joe and his journey failed, dishearteningly, to do. Much of it is what you’d expect: bullying in the cafeteria and the locker room, a terrifying prank, a meeting with a school counselor in which, it’s clear, the powers that be would almost prefer Jadin transferring schools to actually having a hand in punishing his bullies. But there are the other, softer notes, tactile in their close-ups and quivering intimacy, of Jadin interacting with his closest friends (all of them girls) and of his making eyes at a closeted boy on the football team, later kissing that boy, and, finally, overstepping the boundaries of their relationship by trying to imagine some future for them both that surpasses the hard limits of their quiet, politely bigoted hometown. 

Reid Miller’s accomplished performance renders Jadin extraordinary for being so ordinary; smart, sensitive, almost unduly wise, but in the scheme of things normal, which is to say, trying his hardest to be himself despite the risks. He weathers anonymous texts from bullies on his own. He navigates his sense of himself on his own. In concert with the loneliness we’re given of Joe Bell on the road, we’re given a portrait of Jadin that is also lonely — and left with the sense that it didn’t, shouldn’t, have needed to be that way. Someone asks, “Doesn’t it bother you what people say?” Jadin’s response: “Words can’t hurt me. I’m tougher than I look.” The line reads like an easy cliché. But Miller makes you believe it.

Green is working from a script by longtime collaborators Diana Ossana and the late Larry McMurtry. The pair’s last film outing was the script for Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain . It won them an Oscar. Brokeback was an adaptation. It had the benefit of taking E. Annie Proulx’s crisp, psychologically condensed short story as its template, a story that used cowboy mythology and our culture’s broadly recognized codes of Western masculinity to its advantage in order to avoid reiterating the obvious. Instead, it burrowed between the husk of known mythology and tradition into a secret, intimate history, a queer history, that for most people can only be imagined. The historical record isn’t silent, but it’s mighty quiet. Joe Bell , based on a true story, faces a different challenge. It’s  a reconstruction of two peoples’ lives that, in reading the press coverage on them both after the fact, feels — feels — drawn from reality, not fiction or imagination. 

The result of this is a film that risks having more to say about Joe, who became a public figure while alive, than Jadin, whose story only became broadly known after his death. Again, the title tells us something. But the focus on Joe is not as illegitimate or even wrongheaded as it may seem, to many. It’s in the film’s intentions that the questions worth reckoning with, bristling against, start to arise. So much of Joe’s depiction in Joe Bell rides on the physical hardship of his journey — again, a fact drawn from life — that the film’s insistent harping begins to come off as a thesis about its hero. When a kindly cop (played by Gary Sinise) picks Joe up and offers him a meal, going so far as to arrange for him to speak at a pastor’s youth group, Joe accepts — on the condition that the officer drop him off where he’d picked him up. As Joe reiterates, he intends to walk every mile of the way. He must.

When the self-flagellating Christians of yore — those long, groaning processions of men with their whips and bloody backs, so intrinsic to the plagued medieval imagery that persists into the present — took to the streets to cleanse themselves of sin by mortifying the flesh, they did so in the name of earning God’s mercy. Joe Bell is not, or at least not explicitly, a religious picture. But its secular ritual of hardship and holy comeuppance (by way of Jadin’s ghost) feel familiar in their intentions. The ellipses in this film are significant. Curiously curtailed are the speeches Joe gives to packed audiences, in themselves. And the questions Jadin’s ghost poses early in the movie — of Joe’s tendency to avoid the harder battles, failing to confront the homophobes he encounters in the wild in favor of preaching to the choirs of people drawn to his online phenomenon and, thus, plausibly already sympathetic — are never really reconciled by either Joe or the movie. The film’s eye is trained on the inner battle. Its endpoint is a series of internal encounters Joe has with himself, spurred in part by conversations with others. “It’s hard to stand strong in places where there are more churches than there are gays,” a man tending a gay bar tells Joe after sharing his own coming-out story. This inspires a rant from Joe: about his son being shamed at a church, about the hypocrisy of the Church — Catholic priests being shuttled from parish to parish come up — and about his son’s humiliation. What immediately follows: a scene of Joe weathering dreary, rainy conditions, his mortal suffering, his oncoming cold, the pressures he feels from home.

By the time we get to the climax of Jadin’s own crisis and the run-up to his suicide, Joe’s own suffering — not only the physical torments of his journey, but the moral demands he’s inflicted on himself — has by and large run its course, becoming subject to increasingly heightened reiteration. The moments leading up to his  son ‘s then proceed to rain down in a quick, anxious, melodramatic cascade of painful snippets, including more bullying at school. We are alternately made more fully aware of both Jadin’s plight and of Joe’s pain in the present, his need to reconcile his own feelings and failures brushing against the failures of loved one’s that Jadin encounters in his final moments. In concert with this, in the scenes that immediately follow Jadin’s suicide, what we’re given is a tour of Joe’s grief: his inability to get out of bed, a moment of him sitting in his truck, in the rain, with a gun. Soon after that, suddenly able to get out of bed (after what, in real life, actually amounted to a months-long bout of depression), Joe runs downstairs at breakfast time and startles his family with his idea for the cross-country walk. It’s an odd moment — strange for the sudden fervor with which Joe feels duty-bound to acknowledge the travails of his son, stranger still for reminding us that this man is played by Wahlberg, which is to say, played with a level of boyish excitability that in context risks reducing it all to something far less substantial than what it is. It comes off like a stroke of divine, compassionate genius, a veritable lightbulb moment from on high. “Lola,” he tries to reassure his wife, “I’ll talk to everybody along the way. Anybody who’ll listen. About bullying. About the damage it did, about our boy. I’m doing this for Jadin, Lola. It’s what he’d want me to do. I know it is.”

Is it what Jadin wants? There’s of course much to be said for a parent knowing their child better than anyone else, certainly anyone only watching a movie about the pair, can know. But the premise of Joe’s journey is also, adamantly, a study of what he failed to know — or rather, what he failed to do. In the midst of such confusion, failure, and regret, it is easy to overstate what the premise otherwise undermines: the mere idea of Joe knowing what Jadin “wants.” His characterization, otherwise, is of a man who deliberately puts his head in the sand, asks his son to rein it in, refuses to ask too many questions. It’s Jadin’s ghost — a manifestation of Jadin produced by Joe’s mind — that Joe lives with. Not the Jadin who lived. Can we believe that this father — so brusque, so embarrassed, so unwilling to tread into the territory of his own discomfort that Jadin, while alive, would come to write that he feels surrounded by people who hate him — can know, all of a sudden, what was going on in the inner life of a son whose crises he largely pushed out of mind? “Everybody’s against bullying, aren’t they?” Joe says, confronted with his wife’s skepticism. No, she says, correcting him with a dose of the obvious. If everyone were against bullying, their son would be alive. 

Joe Bell is painful, sincere. Its most optimistic and substantial strand is its belief in the possibility of, not forgiveness for the unaccepting, but acceptance in itself — acceptance that would eradicate, upend the need for queer people to learn, later on in life, should they lead long lives, to forgive. But forgiveness for those who failed to accept their loved ones before it was too late is also, it cannot be denied, on the film’s mind to the very end. “I never let him know it was OK,” says Joe, in his encounter with the kindly cop who feeds him, a man whose own son, Joe learns, is also gay. Before hearing Joe’s story — Jadin’s story — the officer admits that he’d never considered that his son might take his own life, or that the boy might need more than silent reassurance that he is loved: that he might need to hear it outright from his father. Joe’s confession of his own failure, delivered as monologue, has clearly stirred something in this man. This, we gather, is key to the purpose of Joe’s journey and, just as essentially, to the movie: to stir these realizations in others, through these interactions, through the talks Joe gives. 

It needn’t be said that in death, as imagined by his father, Jadin is able to offer his dad a love that was not adequately reciprocated when he was still alive. It similarly goes without saying that the loss of a child, the grief that ensues, is inexplicable — and that regret, too, and our behavior in its wake, can be hard to explain. For Joe Bell to largely emerge as the tale of one man’s inner journey, rather than as a more thorough dive into the unknowns of his son’s inner life and eventual tragedy, is not out automatically of turn. It is a worthwhile avenue of the broader story: The flaw is not in assigning gravity to Joe’s pain, nor his path. The flaw is something murkier — more tangled, even, than the film’s flirtation with redemption. Ultimately, Joe is limited to an understanding of his son’s life that can only be imagined from his own, imperfect perspective. By the end of the movie, because of the movie, so, for better and worse, are we.

Drama at the Ranch: 'Yellowstone' Drops New Teaser for Final Episodes

• Cowboy Chaos
• By Jon Blistein

That's Not Actually Tom Hanks Hocking 'Miracle Cures and Wonder Drugs' on the Internet

• AI, Caramba!

Winona Ryder Says Sexual Harassment 'Soured' Passion for Making Movies

• Speaking Out
• By Ethan Millman

Pharrell and Michel Gondry’s Star-Studded Musical 'Atlantis' Gets 2025 Release Date

• By Tomás Mier

Vince McMahon Docuseries of 'Harrowing Allegations' Gets Release Date

• Mr. McMahon

Most Popular

Quentin tarantino refuses to watch 'toy story 4' because 'toy story 3' is 'one of the best movies i've ever seen' and the 'perfect' trilogy ender: 'i'm done', all about rfk jr.'s daughter kick kennedy amid rumors she's dating ben affleck, tim burton explains why alec baldwin and geena davis aren't in 'beetlejuice' sequel, mariah carey's mother and sister die the same day, singer confirms: "my heart is broken", you might also like, how footage from jerry lewis’ dark comedy about a concentration camp came to be seen for first time, the 16 best makeup brush sets for every level of mastery, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, ‘screamboat’ teaser trailer: steamboat willie turns lethal in bloody horror subversion for deskpop, driver in gaudreau collision faces vehicular homicide charges.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Advertisement

Supported by

‘Joe Bell’ Review: Far Trek

Mark Wahlberg plays a bereaved father on a campaign against bullying in this dreary drama.

• Share full article

By Jeannette Catsoulis

By and large, audiences don’t go to the movies to watch unprepossessing people engage in tedious pursuits — however noble or well-intentioned. And I have seen few cinematic sights more tedious this year than Mark Wahlberg trudging across America as the title character of “Joe Bell,” a droopy drama with its feet on the blacktop and its heart set on redemption.

Earnestly directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, the movie dramatizes the true story of Joe , an Oregon mill worker who decides to walk toward New York City in honor of his gay son, Jadin (Reid Miller). Joe’s mission is to raise awareness about the perils of bullying, which Jadin, 15, endured daily at the hands of cruel classmates before ending his own life. As presented here, though (the screenplay is by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry), the father’s real mission is atonement.

Flashbacks reveal Joe to be a volatile, conservative father who’s displeased by Jadin’s orientation — and his lone-male visibility on the cheerleading squad — without being openly homophobic. (He’s also the kind of man who buys a big-screen TV while his patient wife — played by a deglamorized Connie Britton — waits for a new washing machine.) Once Joe is on the road, however, the movie turns Jadin into a sentimental contrivance, a tool to illustrate his father’s transformation from short-fused insensitive to self-punishing penitent.

Grim and well-acted, “Joe Bell” is the story of a martyr. Joe’s punishing, monthslong trek, chronicled on Facebook and punctuated by interactions with bigots and sympathizers, is riddled with down-home didacticism.

“It’s hard to stand strong in places where there are more churches than gays,” one stranger tells Joe in a movie that appears far less interested in Jadin’s suffering than his father’s.

Joe Bell Rated R for homophobic slurs and reprehensible behavior. 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A working-class father embarks on a nationwide walk to combat bullying after his son's high school bullying, realizing he's missing out on his son's life back home. A working-class father embarks on a nationwide walk to combat bullying after his son's high school bullying, realizing he's missing out on his son's life back home. A working-class father embarks on a nationwide walk to combat bullying after his son's high school bullying, realizing he's missing out on his son's life back home.

• Reinaldo Marcus Green
• Diana Ossana
• Larry McMurtry
• Mark Wahlberg
• Reid Miller
• Connie Britton
• 162 User reviews
• 77 Critic reviews
• 54 Metascore

Top cast 65

• Lola Lathrop

• Joseph Bell

• Sheriff Westin

• Jimmy Crowder

• Samantha Sims

• Utah HWY Patrolman

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Larry McMurtry's final produced screenplay. He died before the release, which was delayed because of COVID.
• Goofs When Joe is sitting on side of the road around 1:08 he has the cart that isn't given to him until a few minutes later from a guy in a truck.

Joe Bell : A lot of people don't think it's a big deal to make fun of other people... um, who are different from you. You know, bullying and intolerance can have a deadly effect. And I'm here because I'm walking across America on behalf of my son, Jadin, to speak out against bullying.

• Soundtracks Born This Way Written by Paul Blair , Fernando Garibay , Lady Gaga (as Stefani Germanotta) & Jeppe Breum Laursen (as Jeppe Laursen) Used by permission of House of Gaga Publishing LLC, Sony/ATV Songs LLC, Sony/ATV Tunes LLC, Universal Music Corp., Universal Polygram Int. Publishing Inc., Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.

User reviews 162

• Apr 6, 2022
• How long is Joe Bell? Powered by Alexa
• July 23, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• Official distributor site
• Official Facebook
• Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Argent Pictures
• Closest to the Hole Productions
• Fifth Season
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Jul 25, 2021

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 34 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

Joe Bell Is a Moving Tale That Misses Its Chance at Greatness

It’s hard to discuss Joe Bell without revealing a key early twist in Joe Bell , so let’s get the non-spoiler stuff out of the way first: Based on a true story, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s film is about a father (Mark Wahlberg) attempting to walk from his hometown of La Grande, Oregon, to New York City in order to spread an anti-bullying message after his teenage son Jadin (Reid Miller) was bullied at school for being gay. Wahlberg is at times quite affecting in the part of a man who doesn’t quite know how to do the right thing but knows he should do something. However, the film’s fairly relentless focus on Joe at times gives short shrift to Jadin’s own story.

That’s the brief review. The longer, spoiler-y version is more complicated. Those familiar with the real-life Joe Bell’s story will know that his son Jadin wasn’t simply bullied; he died by suicide at the age of 15 as a result of the homophobic abuse he received. In Joe Bell ’s early scenes, however, we see Jadin walking alongside his father on his cross-country trek, remarking on the landscape around them, enjoying grilled wild asparagus, singing Lady Gaga songs, laughing at Joe’s preference of Dolly Parton over Cher. It’s only during a visit to a gay bar that Joe reveals — to a Dolly Parton impersonator, naturally — that his son is dead. The boy walking alongside him, in other words, is a phantom.

Much of what one thinks of Joe Bell will turn on what one thinks of this twist. Some will surely find it manipulative. It is, of course. But movies manipulate; that’s just part of what they do. And the simple idea of a father walking alongside an imaginary, still-alive version of his deceased son is agonizing. After his revelation in the bar, Joe comes back to an empty motel room — a room that was filled with Jadin’s lively presence two scenes earlier — and we feel the measure of his loss.

We might also notice that the boy walking alongside him is not Jadin but an idea of Jadin. More specifically, an idea of Jadin still held by his father. During a stop at a diner, Joe overhears a couple of bigots then hands them a brochure and promptly leaves without eating. Ghost Jadin excoriates him for not kicking these men’s asses. It’s an odd moment and doesn’t feel like something the kid would say. So, when we realize that this is not Jadin but Joe speaking to himself through Jadin, this man’s inner world begins to come into sharper focus.

The real journey in Joe Bell isn’t the one Joe is making across the country but rather the more introspective one he hasn’t taken yet. In flashbacks, we see that the pretty conservative, good ol’ boy Joe was unsure of how to handle his son — how to handle the boy’s joining the cheerleading squad or his refusal to engage in macho rituals, like watching football on TV. The father professes a kind of half-hearted support, but he’s clearly embarrassed by his child. When he says, “I love you” to Jadin, it sounds like a threat.

This same psychological block dominates Joe’s trek. He moves relentlessly forward, delivering speeches to high-school gyms and bingo halls in an aggressive, motormouth monotone. He’s in a rush because he’s not really walking across the U.S.; he’s running from himself. He hasn’t thought of the role his own don’t-ask-don’t-tell attitude might have played in helping end his son’s life. Wahlberg (who himself had some violent, bigoted incidents in his youth, which may or may not have influenced his decision to make this movie) excels at playing that kind of driven, unreflective character. He has a tougher time when Joe finally does make outward displays of emotion, but at least he’s trying, which is a welcome sight for those of us who’ve always liked him as an actor .

Joe Bell was written by Diana Ossana and the late, great Larry McMurtry, who also wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain . That 2005 film is vastly superior to Joe Bell , but one can see an odd continuum between them. The angry, contemptuous sneer we see at the end of Brokeback on the face of Peter McRobbie, playing the father of the late Jack Twist (played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is listed as an executive producer on Joe Bell ) has never left me. Joe Bell attempts to portray a different kind of grieving father — similarly uncomprehending, at least initially, but far more compassionate and human. If the idea of making a movie in the year 2021 about a man struggling to accept his son’s homosexuality doesn’t exactly feel particularly fresh or relevant — well, that’s probably true, but we may also want to keep an eye on just how many countries around the world refuse to give Joe Bell a proper release.

Artistically, however, the movie faces the same spiritual challenge that Joe Bell the character does — it doesn’t really see Jadin. And unlike Joe, the film never quite achieves self-awareness. We do get glimpses of the son’s life in flashback, including a brief, clandestine romance with a boy on the football team. But we keep waiting for a full sense of Jadin as a person instead of a vision of him merely as a victim, a supporting player in his dad’s story of acceptance.

The problem with Joe Bell isn’t that it’s telling Joe’s story; that’s an important (and tragic) tale that should be told. The problem is that it fails to also tell Jadin’s story — even after it makes the point that Jadin’s journey is inextricable from Joe’s. That’s not simply an issue of representation but of dramatic weight. A fuller picture of Jadin would have expanded the film’s sense of tragedy and would also have made Joe’s transformation more visceral. As it stands, Joe Bell is an occasionally moving film that misses its chance at greatness.

More Movie reviews

• Babygirl Might Just Be The Year’s Hottest Movie
• Tim Burton Is Great Again
• John Woo’s The Killer (2024) Is No John Woo’s The Killer (1989)
• movie review
• mark wahlberg
• reinaldo marcus green
• larry mcmurtry
• diana ossana
• lgbtq rights

Most Viewed Stories

• Cinematrix No. 157: August 30, 2024
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Premiere Recap: Sauron Unmasked
• This Is Not Angelina Jolie’s Big Comeback
• A Breakdown of Armie Hammer Allegations, Controversies, and Time-share Drama
• 56 TV Shows We Can’t Wait to Watch This Fall

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

How to Help Kids Build Character Strengths with Quality Media

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 1 Review
• Kids Say 0 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Drama about tolerance means well but misses mark; bullying.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Joe Bell is a fact-based drama about a man (Mark Wahlberg) who tries to walk across America to raise awareness about bullying and intolerance because of what his teen son, who's gay, went through. Violence includes bullying, teens in a locker room taunting and ganging up on another…

Why Age 15+?

Very strong, frequent language includes uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t,"

Bullying. Jocks gang up on a teen boy in the locker room, surrounding and taunti

Teens smoke and drink (at a party). Adults smoke cigarettes. Dialogue about adul

Teens flirt, briefly kiss. Married couple kisses.

Mentions of Facebook, Coke.

Any Positive Content?

Movie is strongly pro-LGBTQ+, advocates for kindness and tolerance, is against b

Jadin is depicted as brave and honest for coming out to his family, pursuing the

Very strong, frequent language includes uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "a--hole," "t-ts," "ass," "goddamn," "son of a bitch," "ass," "hell," "damn," "piss," plus "for God's sakes." Anti-LGBTQ+ slurs like "fairy" and "f--got." One character says it's hard to stay strong in a place where there are "more churches than gays."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Bullying. Jocks gang up on a teen boy in the locker room, surrounding and taunting him. One teen punches another. Gun shown. Characters die. Adult throws an angry tantrum, scaring his family. Dialogue about teen suicide; shot of ambulance pulling away. Dialogue about fighting.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Teens smoke and drink (at a party). Adults smoke cigarettes. Dialogue about adult drinking too much, slurring their words.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive messages.

Movie is strongly pro-LGBTQ+, advocates for kindness and tolerance, is against bullying. Depicts challenges of being your authentic self in an environment that's full of prejudice, as well as people's struggles to find acceptance for loved ones.

Positive Role Models

Jadin is depicted as brave and honest for coming out to his family, pursuing the life he wants in spite of potential ridicule. Unfortunately, his breaking point comes a little too quickly, and it's difficult to reconcile. Joe Bell might be considered admirable for trying to do something to raise awareness for his son's plight, but his overall efforts seem to come to little, if anything. Main characters are White.

Parents need to know that Joe Bell is a fact-based drama about a man ( Mark Wahlberg ) who tries to walk across America to raise awareness about bullying and intolerance because of what his teen son, who's gay, went through. Violence includes bullying, teens in a locker room taunting and ganging up on another teen, punching, a gun, an angry tantrum, dialogue about suicide and fighting, and more. Teens flirt and kiss at a party, and teens smoke and drink. Adults also smoke cigarettes, and there's dialogue about characters who drink too much and slur their words. The language is very strong and includes swear words such as "f--k," "s--t," "motherf----r," and more, plus slurs like "f--got" and "fairy." The movie wears its message of kindness and acceptance on its sleeve; its delivery is more than a little clumsy, but it's well-meaning. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

In JOE BELL, Joe Bell ( Mark Wahlberg ) is seen walking along the highways of America, accompanied by his son, Jadin (Reid Miller). Joe is determined to spread a message of tolerance and kindness after the merciless treatment that Jadin, who is gay, endured at the hands of bullies. Flashbacks tell the beginnings of their story, from Jadin coming out to his joining the high school cheerleading squad to the tragic event that caused Joe to hit the road. But what will Joe really discover out there on the road?

Is It Any Good?

A movie with important things to say but not much clue how to say them, this virtuous drama might have worked if not for an unforgivable story device and an unsatisfying late-movie roadblock. Written, surprisingly, by the Brokeback Mountain team of Diana Ossana and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry, Joe Bell (formerly titled Good Joe Bell ) feels like amateur hour. It's admittedly difficult, and certainly unfair, to describe the movie's two slap-in-the-face moments without disrespecting its noble efforts to tell a timely and crucial story, but it's a wonder how these two expert writers could have opted for such aggravating dramatic devices.

The movie definitely has worthy moments, such as watching Joe connect with his son or finding solace on the road with a group of drag performers and an understanding sheriff ( Gary Sinise ). But Joe's little speeches to high schools and other community groups are weirdly unmoving, and it's odd that the movie is as clumsy at communicating its message as the character is. Ultimately, it seems as if the filmmakers never decided what -- or whom -- their movie was actually supposed to be about. With a little more streamlining, a great movie could have been told from this story, but Joe Bell is not it.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Joe Bell . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

How is bullying depicted here? What are the results of bullying? How are bullies handled in the movie? Are there consequences for bullying behavior?

How are LGBTQ+ characters represented in Joe Bell ? Do you consider them positive representations? Why, or why not?

This movie is based on a true story. How accurate do you think it is to the facts? Why might filmmakers adjust real-life events for a movie?

How are alcohol and smoking depicted? Are they glamorized, especially by teens? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 23, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : August 20, 2021
• Cast : Mark Wahlberg , Connie Britton , Reid Miller
• Director : Reinaldo Marcus Green
• Inclusion Information : Black directors, Latino directors, Female actors
• Studio : Roadside Attractions
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 94 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language including offensive slurs, some disturbing material, and teen partying
• Last updated : July 22, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Giant Little Ones

Love, Simon

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Movies with LGBTQ+ Characters

Coming-of-age movies.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

‘Joe Bell’ Film Review: Mark Wahlberg Hits the Road to Make You Cry

The earnest drama directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry is awkward at times, quietly affecting at others

The opening credits of “Joe Bell” point out that the film is based on a true story, but it might be best to go into it not knowing too much about that story.

That’s not because the film from director Reinaldo Marcus Green (“Monsters and Men”) in any way betrays the real events, or even distorts them too much — on the whole, the drama written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry tries hard to do justice to Joe Bell, an Oregon man who in 2013 set out to walk across the United States to bring attention to bullying after his son, Jadin, was mercilessly mocked and bullied for being gay.

But “Joe Bell,” which premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival under the title “Good Joe Bell” but received a new edit before its July 2021 release from Roadside Attractions, takes some twists and turns along the way — and it contains a couple of significant surprises for viewers who come in without too much knowledge of the real events. Knowing where it’s going will have a real impact on how those revelations land, to the point where if you can go in fresh, you probably should.

(But afterward, you’ll probably want to learn more about the true events, which we won’t discuss in this review.)

An open-hearted, unapologetically emotional story of a man struggling to come to terms with what happened to his son and with his own complicity in it, “Joe Bell” makes good use of the Everyman appeal of Mark Wahlberg. It’s certainly not a landmark like “Brokeback Mountain,” Ossana and McMurtry’s previous film that dealt with gay issues in a Western setting was — and it won’t be mentioned alongside McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show” and “Terms of Endearment,” either, though that trio of films sets a pretty high bar.

“Joe Bell,” by contrast, is earnest and passionate, sometimes awkward and overdone and sometimes quietly affecting. It’s a road trip based on a real-life story that doesn’t make for a tidy narrative, struggling to get where it wants to go but perhaps prompting a few tears along the way.

The film starts in Idaho, with Joe Bell trudging by the side of the road as semi-trucks barrel past. He’s on a quest to speak out against bullying anywhere he can find people who will listen, but the first talk we see him give is desultory and unconvincing. (In fact, we never really see him get any better at it.) Back on the road, he hears smack from Jadin, who is along on the walk to prod and needle his father and push him not to do the easy thing.

The film follows Joe on his walk but fills in the story with copious flashbacks, beginning with the time Jadin told his father about the bullying, but Joe just wanted his son to toughen up. “It’ll all work itself out,” he says, anxious to return to the new big-screen TV in the other room. “Are we done here now?”

Joe has come a good distance both physically and mentally from that moment, but guilt weighs him down as he makes his way through Utah and into Colorado, acquiring a measure of recognition along the way. When his wife and younger son (Connie Britton and Maxwell Jenkins) come to visit him, he blows up at them and she snaps back, “Keep walking and don’t come home until you figure out what you want to be. And I hope it’s not some Facebook celebrity who gets your picture taken with people.”

Walhberg is believable as a man trying to unlearn what were once his blunt, oafish responses to anything he didn’t want to face (though he seems to have accepted his son being gay, and even sings along with Jadin to Lady Gaga on the side of the road). And as Jadin, newcomer Reid Miller shines as a teen who wants to be out and unapologetic, but who’s forced to justify (or apologize for) his very existence just to get through the day.

The flashbacks get more brutal and more extended — the lengthy center section of the film is almost all flashback, with its urgent melodrama for the most part less convincing than the subtly changing interplay between Joe and Jadin.  The spine of the film, which is Joe’s walk, is a largely solitary pursuit, and the real journey he must make is an internal one — but in order for us to follow his progress, Joe needs to have moments where he talks to other people about what he’s going through, whether it’s a roadside conversation or a voicemail home. Some of these conversations make their points subtly enough, but others spell everything out in a way that feels a little too on-the-nose — and the film also turns, with diminishing returns, to a series of montages set mostly to gentle acoustic ballads that are asked to do too much emotional heavy lifting.

Gary Sinise, though, grounds the final stretch of the film with a quiet, understated performance as a sheriff that Joe encounters in Colorado; some of his and Walhberg’s moments together are as emotional and as affecting as anything in the film.

There are shocks along the way, handled gently or dropped as a gut punch. Green handles the difficult twists as artfully as he can, but the real story doesn’t work very well with the film’s yearning to find a measure of acceptance and redemption. It’s a frustrating journey that will tug at the heartstrings without ever becoming fully satisfying.

NOTE: This review has been updated since its initial publication to reflect the new, re-edited and retitled version of the film.

What critics think of ‘Joe Bell,’ Mark Wahlberg’s new anti-bullying movie

Read the reviews — good and bad — of the dorchester native's anti-bullying drama..

By Kevin Slane

When it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2020, Mark Wahlberg’s anti-bullying drama was known as “Good Joe Bell.” Following half-decent reviews at the festival, Roadside Attractions decided to re-cut the film and drop the “Good,” changing the title to just “Joe Bell.”

Which begs the question: Is there anything good about “Joe Bell”?

Based on a true story, Wahlberg plays Joe Bell, a father who doesn’t know how to react when his son Jadin (Reid Miller) comes out as gay. When Jadin kills himself due to relentless bullying at school, Joe embarks on a cross-country walk from his home in Oregon to New York City, both to raise awareness and to come to terms with his own shortcomings.

At the time of this article’s publication, “Joe Bell” had earned a 39 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though that number includes critics who saw the earlier cut of the movie last fall. (Post-festival re-cuts aren’t uncommon, and it’s unclear exactly how substantial the changes were for “Joe Bell” from September’s debut to now.)

That said, a single number can’t adequately capture the range of critical response, and many of the reviews coded as “fresh” or “rotten” by the critical aggregation site have a bit more nuance. To help you judge whether to head to theaters for Wahlberg’s latest, here’s what some of the top film critics are saying, both good and bad, about “Joe Bell.”

In his TIFF review round-up, critic Dwight Brown praised Wahlberg’s performance as a career-best, and predicted an Oscar nomination in the Dorchester native’s future.

“Most of Mark Wahlberg’s performances are tied to ultra-masculine roles (pugilist in  The Fighter;  bounty hunter in  Transformers: Age of Extinction ). In this touching and sobering family drama, his interpretation of an Oregon father in search of redemption lets him give his most layered, nuanced and sensitive performance yet.”

Kate Erbland of IndieWire gave “Joe Bell” a B+, crediting the film with subverting its well-worn narrative path and finding poignancy in quiet moments .”

“While formulaic on its face, Green’s film resists the sort of obvious cinematic catharsis expected of such a story, resulting in a final product that mostly earns its emotional beats.”

Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair described his complicated feelings about Wahlberg’s performance, noting his perspective as a film critic who was bullied for being gay growing up in Boston.

“That Joe is played by Wahlberg gives the film a curious extra dimension. Wahlberg, in his long career as a musician and actor, has said some uncharitable—or flat-out bigoted—things about gay people. […] His appearance in this film, then—a seemingly pure act of volition, perhaps meant to reflect an evolving personal ethos—earns some begrudging respect. Again, it’s maybe not enough, but it’s something.There’s a self-consciousness to Wahlberg’s performance that works well for the role.”

Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe gave “Joe Bell” two-and-a-half stars, praising Wahlberg for showing more emotion in his performance than all of his previous movies combined, but panning the screenplay and the formulaic plot. 

“The movie’s heart is completely in the right place, which, frankly, can make it a bit of a chore to watch. Moral righteousness makes the world a better place, but filmic it’s not. Beware of movie protagonists who say “The truth is all I have.” Also beware of screenwriters who give them such lines.”

Variety’s Peter Debruge  called the film “uniquely terrible,” panning “Joe Bell” director Reinaldo Marcus Green for making a feature-length film on a topic that would have worked better “as a 90-second news brief.” 

“There are good movies, there are bad movies, and then there is “Joe Bell,” a uniquely terrible treatment of an important topic — broadly described as “inclusivity” and “tolerance” by the film’s wild-eyed protagonist (Mark Wahlberg) — whose hubristic title is the first clue that it’s not playing fair.”

Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times  criticized the film for turning Jadin into a “sentimental contrivance” and for being “far less interested” in the suffering of the teenage character than his father. 

“By and large, audiences don’t go to the movies to watch unprepossessing people engage in tedious pursuits — however noble or well-intentioned. And I have seen few cinematic sights more tedious this year than Mark Wahlberg trudging across America as the title character of “Joe Bell,” a droopy drama with its feet on the blacktop and its heart set on redemption.”

Newsletter Signup

Stay up to date on all the latest news from Boston.com

Conversation

This discussion has ended. please join elsewhere on boston.com, most popular.

Police fatally shoot man on New Hampshire-Maine bridge along I-95; 8-year-old child found dead in vehicle

Market Basket gives out bonuses in honor of the 10-year anniversary of strikes

Patriots defensive lineman discussed the Mass. millionaires tax

Northeastern’s acceptance rate for Boston campus drops to 5.2% 

Newton man charged after allegedly triggering dorm explosion

In Related News

5 must-watch movies & TV shows streaming right now

Ahead of his pbs special, warren zanes talks about bruce springsteen movie and the power of ‘nebraska’.

The best movies on Netflix right now

Boston.com newsletter signup boston.com logo.

Stay up to date with everything Boston. Receive the latest news and breaking updates, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.

Enter your email address

Review: Mark Wahlberg walks in the guilt-ridden shoes of a despairing parent in ‘Joe Bell’

• Copy Link URL Copied!

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials .

The new Mark Wahlberg-starring drama “Joe Bell,” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green , is based on a true story that took place in 2013, when a lumber worker, Joe Bell (Wahlberg), set out to walk from La Grande, Ore., to New York City. His stated goal was to bring awareness to bullying, spurred by the horrific experiences of his teen son, Jadin (Reid Miller), who came out as gay as a young teenager. Initially, Jadin joins his father on the walk, bopping along next to him, singing Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” ribbing his old man, the two sparring with each other about what Joe’s trying to accomplish out on the road.

If you’ve read a single log line for the film or have a familiarity with the real events, you know the twist or, rather, the conceit at play here. Joe is walking across America because his son is dead, a phrase he finally speaks aloud about 30 minutes in to a stricken drag queen in a gay bar somewhere between Idaho and Colorado. Jadin died by suicide because of the extreme bullying and harassment he suffered at the hands of his peers, and now, on the road, Joe toils with what part he played in his son’s life and death.

By all accounts, the real Joe Bell was loving and supportive. But the Joe that Wahlberg plays in “Joe Bell” is tough, gruff and rough around the edges, mercurial, angry and defensive. Even though he frequently tells his wife, Lola (Connie Britton), and kids how much he loves them, this Joe isn’t easy to like. But you root for him anyway, because he continues to put one foot in front of the other, and his breakthrough seems imminent.

Pushing a cart of supplies while 18-wheelers whiz by leaves him exhausted, but his mind tumbles endlessly through memories. He walks because it gives him something to do while his mind cycles through guilt, shame and despair. He walks to make his son’s death matter, to make sense in some way. He walks to leave the mark of Jadin’s death on his body and on the world.

There are moments in “Joe Bell” when you wish the story opened up beyond Joe’s blinkered point of view, but it is a laser-focused piece. Though it sometimes feels treacly and hackneyed, or even predictable,“Joe Bell” resists expectation, and where this true story ends up is far more poignant and devastating than any work of fiction could be.

The script, by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, contains a rough-hewn poetry, leaving little to the imagination; everything that needs to be is said, and a folksy country soundtrack underlines the woeful tone of this modern Western fable. Green applies a naturalistic visual style; the camera (the cinematographer is Jacques Jouffret) regards the crags of Wahlberg’s dusty, tanned visage like the stark landscapes that surround him. In some of the more delicate moments, Green wisely employs restraint, so it rarely feels exploitative or manipulative.

“Joe Bell” is a tale of emotional redemption for a man who relearns what it means to “be a man,” and his moments of triumph are the quietest ones, over a humble meal with a sheriff (Gary Sinise) or in challenging family conversations. As Joe struggles to find purpose in his walk, it becomes clear that it’s not about awareness but simply an expression of a father’s purest love. For all the progress that’s been made for equality and tolerance, what’s most important is that kids feel not just accepted, but loved, for exactly who they are.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Rated: R, for language including offensive slurs, some disturbing material and teen partying. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes Playing: Starts July 23 in general release

More to Read

Review: In the quietly observed ‘Good One,’ a teenager grapples with aggressions small and big

Aug. 9, 2024

Josh Hartnett reveals why he traded L.A. and New York for a quieter life in England

July 29, 2024

Review: In the underpowered ‘Daddio,’ the proverbial cab ride from hell could use more hell

June 28, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Review: A worshipful biopic of the 40th president, ‘Reagan’ is historical hooey — and a slog too

Controversial Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’ lands U.S. release date before election day

Next year’s Oscars have a surprising original song contender: Kristen Wiig

Aug. 29, 2024

Review: In the sluggish space psychodrama ‘Slingshot,’ no one can hear you snooze

Review: Joe Bell

Based on a true story from 2013, the film opens with Joe Bell (Wahlberg) and his 15-year-old son, Jadin (Miller), hiking on a remote stretch of road.  He’s not walking to work or to the corner store.  His goal is considerably more ambitious.  Joe is on a mission to trek across the contiguous United States from his west coast home in La Grande, Oregon to his son’s favourite place, New York City, on the east coast.  It’ll take over a year and the entire distance travelled will exceed 6,000 kilometres.

Armed with just a push trolly and a backpack, Joe isn’t doing this because of a simple sense of adventure.  His son has been bullied at high school for being gay and he wants to raise awareness about the issue and to try to prevent it from happening to others.  In each town he visits, Joe talks to news reporters and speaks in front of kids at school auditoriums.  He’s not the best public speaker but his heart is in the right place.

Without giving too much away, Joe Bell is an emotional, thought-provoking piece that has something to say.  The screenplay was developed by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, the Oscar winning duo who adapted Brokeback Mountain for the big screen, and the director is Reinaldo Marcus Green, a New Yorker who has transitioned from Wall Street banker to budding filmmaker.  His only other feature film was the well-received Monsters and Men from 2018 starring John David Washington.

Curiously, the least interesting character in Joe Bell is Joe Bell himself.  I was fine with the performance of Mark Wahlberg ( Boogie Nights ) and the film isn’t afraid to expose his flaws but he’s very one-note.  The Joe we meet at the start of the movie isn’t too different from the Joe we know at the end of the movie.

There are two characters with much more to offer.  The first is the 15-year-old Jadin who is fleshed out beautifully by rising star Reid Miller.  His background is explored using flashbacks and we’re shown affecting scenes where he comes out to his dad, is viciously tormented by classmates, and meets his first love.  Miller is exceptional (he’s a name to watch going forward) and it’s hard not to be moved by a particularly emotional sequence where, at a vulnerable low point, he calls his best friend and begs for help and support.

 The second character of note is Lola Bell, mother to Jadin and husband to Joe.  Wonderfully played by Connie Britton ( Friday Night Lights ), she becomes the “voice of reason” and the person trying to pull strings and hold the family together when times get tough.  It’s easy to applaud Joe for his visible efforts in raising awareness about bullying but Lola’s unsung work behind the scenes, which takes its toll on her at times, deserves equal recognition.

Reviews were mixed when the film premiered at the 2020 Toronto Film Festival (it even went through a subsequent re-edit) but, in my opinion, Joe Bell is a moving drama that deserved more recognition than its received.

Get the Reddit app

The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions.

Joe Bell - a positive review

Just watched Joe Bell today, picked randomly on Prime. I'd never heard of it, and the description only mentioned it was award winning.

Holy cow. I was in tears by the end. I found it very moving! After looking up reviews, I was surprised how poorly it was received. I found Wahlberg's "lack of depth" perfect for the character. The whole point was to show a less-than-progressive, all american, small town man's perspective on an emotionally complex issue. I could see men in real life who would relate to his personality. I think all father's should watch a film like this.

And the son's performance was fantastic. Also great casting, and great execution.

Even though its a true story, I hadn't heard about it and so the whole plot was a surprise to me. I thought they did a good job with both "twists".

All around I enjoyed the movie and I hope more people watch it.

By continuing, you agree to our User Agreement and acknowledge that you understand the Privacy Policy .

Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app

You’ve set up two-factor authentication for this account.

Enter a 6-digit backup code

Create your username and password.

Reddit is anonymous, so your username is what you’ll go by here. Choose wisely—because once you get a name, you can’t change it.

Reset your password

Enter your email address or username and we’ll send you a link to reset your password

Check your inbox

An email with a link to reset your password was sent to the email address associated with your account

Choose a Reddit account to continue

• Entertainment
• Thanks, I Hate It
• What to Watch
• Royal family

‘Joe Bell’ Movie Review: Mark Wahlberg Messes Up History

The story of Joe Bell and his son Jadin is a worthwhile topic and a tribute to two tragic deaths. Yet the subject deserves better than this movie . Mark Wahlberg and Reid Miller play Joe and Jadin Bell well, but the filmmakers made some questionable artistic choices that compromise the poignancy of the message. 

Who Was Joe Bell?

In 2013, Joe Bell (Wahlberg) began a walking tour across America to talk about bullying. His son, Jadin (Miller), was bullied for being openly gay at his high school. Jadin ultimately died by suicide.

The film portray’s Joe’s walk. He stops to give scheduled speaking engagements. He approaches some people one on one, and only sometimes stays in indoor motels. He’s starving and sacrificing to get his son’s message out there.

‘Joe Bell’ tries to rewrite history 

If you know the story of Jadin Bell you’ll be surprised to see Jadin along for the walk with Joe. Since his death inspired Joe’s walk, the movie is either violating the factual timeline or making Jadin a ghost, neither of which are responsible choices in the most liberal adaptation. If you’re learning this story for the first time you’ll find out halfway through that the movie has been lying to you.

The choice is even more cloying because the script gives Jadin and Joe some contrived bonding scenes. Jadin sings Lady Gaga which is already contrived to invent a singalong scene, and then Joe says the lyrics because he learned them listening to the song coming from Jadin’s bedroom. It’s obnoxious like rom-coms having characters sing into hairbrushes. That it’s fake makes it even worse. Not only did Joe and Jadin never have this moment, but Jadin was already dead by this point in real life. 

Having Jadin on the walk serves no purpose but to give Joe someone to talk to. There are scenes when they argue about the effectiveness of his talks, but if the filmmakers wanted to use this as a device they owe it to the dead to be up front. Joe Bell died after the events of this movie too.

An uneven portrait of bullying and healing 

Joe Bell effectively conveys the extend of the bullying Jadin endured. They throw stuff at him when he’s on cheer squad. Bullies attack him in the showers and text him after school so he really can’t escape. He tries to report it and the administrators advise him that will only make it worse. We still have a long way to go on supporting survivors in 2021.

Mark Wahlberg’s Tough Guy Image Sells, But There’s More to Him Than Meets the Eye

The portrait of Joe’s journey is less clear. He still has outbursts so he’s clearly working through something. Flashbacks show Joe wasn’t always supportive of Jadin. Cut to Joe wallowing in despair and self doubt. It’s so random, just a collection of clip moments 

We barely see the talks. Were they successful? He didn’t change a pair of homophobes in a diner obviously but it appears he went viral. Strangers came up to him so they supported message, or just his walking across country, but it would be nice to see how Joe Bell changed hearts and minds.

Connie Britton is great as Joe’s wife Lola. Britton may have the most complex role.  She’s trying to hold family together while her husband does this thing she’s trying to support. She has her own problems and has another son to raise too.

Joe and Jadon may have reached more people one by one than this film will. Showing Jadin on road means he’s in Joe’s head. That’s a cloying choice to give dialogue. Do the real story, where Joe goes it alone and show the people he meets, when he makes a difference, and when he can’t.

How to get help: In the U.S., call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Or text HOME to 741-741 to speak with a trained crisis counselor at the free Crisis Text Line .

Halle Berry Once Shared Playing Storm in ‘X-Men’ Was Draining Compared to Her Other Films

Meghan Markle Gushes About Princess Lilibet, Says She Is ‘So Proud’ of Her Daughter

Elvis Apologized to a Music Icon for the Way He Covered 1 Song

• Koffee Kult
• Amazon Music
• Movie Series
• Bonus Content
• InSession Film Awards
• Year-End Top 10 Lists
• Women InSession
• Chasing the Gold
• Extra Film Archive
• Latest Releases
• Classic Reviews
• Video Reviews
• Oscars Predictions
• Awards Analysis
• Retrospectives
• Monthly Previews

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green Writers: Diana Ossana, Larry McMurty Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Connie Britton, Gary Sinise, Reid Miller

Synopsis: The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.

Joe Bell initially premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in fall of 2020 under the title Good Joe Bell . Upon wide release the “good” from the title was dropped, a smart decision, considering the character Joe Bell in the film is not exactly depicted as someone who’s “good”. Joe Bell is certainly a roller coaster of an experience, with a multitude of positive aspects accompanied by just as equally negative characteristics, often coinciding and clashing with each other at the same time to make for an emotional journey that leaves you doing mental gymnastics afterwards.

Based on a true story, the film follows Joe Bell as he walks from La Grande, Oregon to New York City to help raise awareness for bullying after his son’s suicide, or as Joe Bell says in the movie “talking about bullying, for kids who might be different”. Joe’s journey is aimless and self-indulgent, as evidenced by the talks that he gives to people and his inability to enact any actual change when it’s truly important. It’s clear that Joe Bell doesn’t truly understand why he’s doing this, rather that he feels he must do something other than sit with his own grief at home. The first half frames Joe in an escapist fantasy, showing him walking alongside his son Jadin as if it’s a father/son hiking trip. It’s a strange choice for the film to put the plot point of Jadin’s death in the trailer, but it attempts to hide it in the film, not revealing that the son Joe has been walking with for half the film is just his own imagination of what his ideal son would be like.

Interspersed through this narrative are flashbacks to when Jadin was alive and facing the bullying that lead to his eventual suicide. Although these moments are incredibly melodramatic and cliche, they’re heavily based in reality and can be a bit triggering to LGBT folks watching who have had a similar experience. Certainly overdone, but they do a great job at portraying how difficult it is to grow up as an LGBT youth where you feel as an outsider to society and dealing with an unstable and unsupportive family. Ried Miller delivers incredibly tragic and authentic moments in these flashback sequences, somehow making the cliche dialogue feel so emotionally raw.

At the center of the film, Mark Wahlberg delivers an incredibly believable complex character in Joe Bell. Intensely unlikeable, Joe Bell is a man who deeply loves his family and his son but has absolutely no idea how to. It’s very obvious that his intentions are well meaning, but ultimately, he’s unsupportive and aggressive to his family, especially to Jadin while he’s alive. Joe Bell makes it clear throughout the movie that he loves his family, but it’s insanely clear that Jadin’s homosexuality makes him uncomfortable, and he doesn’t know how to properly deal with it or stand up for his son when Jadin needs it the most. Wahlberg somehow is able to take a character with so many abusive tendencies and layer them into a man who is just trying his best and failing miserably, creating a kind of anti-hero.

Wahlberg’s character narrative is easily boosted by what seems to be the intention of the filmmakers. It’s clear why this was originally titled Good Joe Bell , as it comes off as if the film is trying to get the audience to root for Joe and consider him a good father who’s just struggling. There are many scenes between Joe and Jadin on the road where they are able to communicate their problems with each other, as well as bond over simple moments that any gay son wishes he could have with his father. The end of the film delivers us a typical Hollywood cathartic emotional moment that feels like a forced character growth moment for Joe that needs to take place before the final blackout. As a character, Joe Bell doesn’t really get any kind of growth, but the film wants us to make us feel like he does somehow. The end of the film and the start create perfect bookends that are rocky and unsure of where they’re headed.

The cherry on top of the cake is the bonding moment that Joe shares with a sheriff near the end. It reeks of copaganda, and feels completely inappropriate in a film raising awareness for bullying against LGBT people, considering the history of violence that police share with the group along with other intersectional identities.

Joe Bell doesn’t really know what it’s doing, and honestly, I don’t really know what to make of it. There’s so much good the film is doing by showing how damaging bullying can be to LGBT youth, especially those living in unsupportive households. But there’s equally as much bad the film is doing by making itself almost entirely self-indulgent and focusing on a character that’s unlikeable and unchanging. The entire film is unfocused, creating a bit of a mess that left me rotating between rolling my eyes and having tears steaming out of them. Ultimately, audiences will be divided on this, or, like myself, will settle somewhere in the middle.

Similar Articles

Classic review: ‘rear window’ is hitchcock’s masterpiece, movie review: ‘the other laurens’ is a fun, family-centric noir.

MOST POPULAR

Films that ended before they started, criterion releases: september 2024.

The Killer (2024)

John Woo ’s “ The Killer ” was a true gamechanger, at least for this critic. The one-two punch of Woo’s 1989 action masterpiece with his equally magnificent “Hard Boiled” changed the way I looked at the genre in my teens, and truly inspired hundreds of imitators. For anyone in my age range who can remember watching “The Killer” (likely on VHS) decades ago, the thought of remaking a flawless film feels cinematically heretical. And yet Hollywood has been circling such a project for decades with  Richard Gere  and  Nicolas Cage  once attached in the ‘90s. After years of false starts, a remake finally emerges, limping onto Peacock with almost no fanfare or promotion. Directed by Woo himself, the 2024 version of “The Killer” is obviously competently made–the Hong Kong director still knows how to stage an action sequence, well into his seventies—but the truth is that this version of the film does absolutely nothing better than the original. It’s a movie that’s generally watchable but almost instantly forgettable, which the best of Woo never is.

Nathalie Emmanuel  (Ramsey from the later “Fast and the Furious” movies) plays the mysterious Zee, a stealthy assassin for a powerful organization run by the vicious Finn ( Sam Worthington ). The “ Avatar ” actor nails a certain kind of slimy power figure, the one who will pretend to have your best interests in mind but only as far as it suits him personally. When Zee gets a job that requires an assassination via samurai sword in a Parisian nightclub, the assignment goes sideways with the blinding of a singer named Jenn ( Diana Silvers ). Despite the fact that she can’t exactly point the finger at the killer, Finn insists that Zee take out the witness, leading to moral crisis for the murderer for hire. While Zee tries to keep Jenn alive, a Paris cop named Sey ( Omar Sy  of “Lupin”) gets this incredible case and crosses paths with Zee, giving “The Killer” most of its narrative thrust in that it’s a story of a criminal and a cop who may not be as different as they first believe.

Clearly, a lot of the narrative beats of the original remain, although the gender swap naturally makes a pretty big difference both in the Zee/Jenn relationship and the dynamic between Zee & Sey. The sort of dance between a killer and a cop, which many over the years even read as homoerotic in the original, has been shifted by the change but hardly anything has been done with that shift. Changing race, gender, and location should give “The Killer” a different flavor, but the truth is that there’s just no seasoning. It’s as if the writers ( Brian Helgeland ,  Josh Campbell  & Martin Stuecken) figured the swaps alone would be interesting enough that they didn’t have to do anything more. It also just reeks of a script that has been in development for so long that all of the passion has been drained from it with rewrites, producer’s notes, and focus groups. The original hums with energy in not just its ace filmmaking but its narrative structure, and there’s just nothing to care about here in terms of plotting, while additions, like a few flashbacks to Zee’s origin story, feel half-hearted and cheap.

Part of the problem here is that Emmanuel just isn’t an interesting enough performer to sell the strong, silent cipher that Zee needs to be. I’m not usually a critic who likes to judge the movie that isn’t there but knowing that Lupita Nyong’o was once attached to this before COVID shut down production reveals even more flaws in Emmanuel’s work. Nyong’o can do so much with body language and her amazing eyes that it feels “The Killer” needed to work, and Emmanuel simply doesn’t have the same skill set. Sy makes out much better, reminding viewers how charming he can be, but Silvers is a non-character, used almost entirely as a device.

Of course, most people aren’t here for performance, and they just want to know about the Woo of it all. He once again leans into his clichés—there will be churches, candles, birds, and slo-mo—but there are some undeniably nifty stunt sequences in the film, especially in the final act’s graveyard shootout. It’s nice to see real stuntpeople showing off what they do best under the direction of a genre master, even if it does feel like he’s lost a beat in terms of pacing, both in action scenes and overall. There’s huge mid-film sag in this too-long movie in which people banter about how to finish jobs during which it will be hard for Peacock viewers at home to put down their phones.

And that makes me a little sad. John Woo movies used to strap you into your seat, making the rest of the world fall away as you appreciated their action artistry. That’s just not the case here. And my biggest concern comes in the overall sunsetting of physical media and lack of curation on streaming. Want to watch the original “The Killer”? It’s not streaming for rental anywhere and costs about $50 on Blu-ray. And that means that this faded copy is now easily the most accessible, and there will certainly be people who don’t even know about the first film when they watch it. In that sense, it’s not just a remake but a replacement. And that kills me.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee
• Omar Sy as Sey
• Sam Worthington as Finn
• Diana Silvers as Jenn
• Éric Cantona as Jules Gobert
• Saïd Taghmaoui as Prince Majeb Bin Faheem
• Brian Helgeland
• Josh Campbell
• Matthew Stuecken

Leave a comment

Now playing.

Merchant Ivory

The Deliverance

City of Dreams

Out Come the Wolves

Seeking Mavis Beacon

Across the River and Into the Trees

You Gotta Believe

Latest articles.

“Risky Business” Remains One of the Most Daring Films of the ’80s

Venice Film Festival 2024: Separated, Maria, Kill the Jockey, One to One: John & Yoko

Experience the Star Trek Movies in 70mm at Out of this World L.A. Event

Home Entertainment Guide: August 2024

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.