THE UNBREAKABLE BOY (2025)

Genre: Drama
Director: Jon Gunn
Cast: Zachary Levi, Meghann Fahy, Jacob Laval, Drew Powell, Peter Facinelli, Gavin Warren, Patricia Heaton, Todd Terry, Kurt Yue
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 20 February 2025

Synopsis: From Kingdom Story Company, the team behind Jesus Revolution and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Lionsgate, the studio behind Wonder, comes The Unbreakable Boy. When his parents, Scott (Zachary Levi) and Teresa (Meghann Fahy), learn that Austin is both autistic and has brittle bone disease, they initially worry for their son’s future. But with Scott’s growing faith and Austin’s incredible spirit, they become “unbreakable,” finding joy, gratitude, and courage even in the most trying times — an extraordinary true story about a father and son learning together that every day can be the best day of your life!

Movie Review:

The Unbreakable Boy is directed by Jon Gunn, an independent filmmaker who specialises in faith-based titles liked American Underdog and Ordinary Angels. And if you are on time, you should have seen the Christian films production label, Kingdom Story Company flashing prior on the screen.

The Unbreakable Boy is marketed as sort of a feel-good drama with a medically-challenged kid in the central role liked Wonder. Jacob Laval plays Austin LeRette, a boy on the autism spectrum that also suffers from brittle bone disease. Zachary Levi plays his dad, Scott and Meghann Fahy plays his mother, Teresa. Austin narrates how daddy and mommy meets and how both of them leads a challenging life managing his daily tasks.

Look, as much as we want to indulge in the story of the LeRettes, the narrative just comes off as pedestrian and for a lack of a better word, exhausting. For a start, this is a depressing movie but Austin and the filmmakers assured us it’s based on a true story so there should be aspects of it to be close to real-life.

The focus is not entirely on Austin though. Much of the human drama is about Scott and Teresa. Actually this is Teresa’s third marriage but that wasn’t convey to Scott nor her genetic issue with brittle bone disease. Then Scott loses his job and got addicted to alcohol. The debts of the household piled up and the couple quarrelled, spilt up for a moment till Scott becomes clean. Meantime, Austin’s younger brother, Logan gets into trouble at school with a bully named Tyler.

Honestly, there’s little to nothing to attract audiences to a movie like this. The happenings appear like some predictable soap opera teledrama although for the most part it tries to avoid as much sentimentality as possible. For a movie that attempts to pass off Austin’s positivities to change the cruel world he is living in, there simply isn’t enough conviction and intelligence to tell us so. In addition, there’s Scott’s “imaginary” friend, Joe who seems like an odd fit throughout.

The drama for better or worse is not overtly religious. Sure, there are discussions of God and instances of faith but not a big deal to make or break the movie. One major issue however appears to be Twilight star Peter Facinelli who stars as Preacher Rick, an unconvincing character that appears everywhere including Scott’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for no reason.

Both Zachary Levi and Meghann Fahy delivers credible performances and that includes young actor, Jacob Laval. However, The Unbreakable Boy lacks the credibility and emotional of Wonder even both contains the same spirit of a feel-good drama. 

Movie Rating:

(The boy might be unbreakable but his non-stop narrative alone can’t save this uninspiring, paint-by-numbers family drama)

Review by Linus Tee