The Unbreakable Boy (2025) review

Dir. Jon Gunn

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

I remember it well because I had just moved to a brand new city and was warming up to a brand new movie theater. In early March 2022, I saw a couple trailers for a film called The Unbreakable Boy. And then it completely disappeared. Lionsgate had taken it off the release calendar roughly a week before it was slated to come out. No updates were given. Then, in early 2024, Lionsgate revealed it would finally see the light of day in February 2025. Producer Kevin Downes claims that the filmmakers convinced the studio to wait for “just the right time” to release the film.

Because that’s what film studios, or any other business, wants to do if they truly believe they had a hit on their hands: scrap its release at the eleventh hour with no explanation and let it languish in purgatory for over two years.

Few probably care about this besides myself, but I was honestly kind of looking forward to The Unbreakable Boy despite its treacly trailers. The film was written and directed by Jon Gunn, one of the more reliable storytellers of faith-based stories these days. He directed last year’s inspiring Ordinary Angels, and wrote Jesus Revolution, the rare film of its kind to acknowledge the fact that America’s spiritual awakening in the 1960s came with the intersection of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.

The Unbreakable Boy aims to tell the story of a real-life boy named Austin LeRette, also known as Aus-Man. Austin was born with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a genetic disease that makes his bones fragile and easy to break. A simple fall could result in a trip to the emergency room. His ribs are broken at birth. To compound matters, Austin is also on the autism spectrum. He babbles nonstop, is relentlessly cheerful, and doesn’t pick up on social cues.

The story of Austin was told by his father, Scott LeRette, in his memoir The Unbreakable Boy: A Father’s Fear, a Son’s Courage, and a Story of Unconditional Love. Here, Scott is played by Zachary Levi, which is somewhat confusing because he is portrayed as a well-meaning, slightly immature, heavy-drinking man who is worried sick after his new girlfriend, Teresa (Meghann Fahy), reveals she’s pregnant. Scott comes across like he’s in his late 20s, but Levi is unmistakably in his 40s. Oh, he also has a weird, imaginary friend named Joe (Drew Powell), who kind of reminded me of Bill Dauterive from King of the Hill. Could he be a manifestation of God? The film actually has a funny response to that theory.

Anyway, once the couple agree to have the baby, Teresa reveals to Scott that she was born with OI. When Austin is born, the two have to hawk over the poor boy to keep him from being unintentionally hurt by his impulses. Austin’s autistic behaviors don’t strike the couple as anything other than childlike ebullience; that is until their second son, Logan (Gavin Warren), is born and is sharply different from his older brother.

The Unbreakable Boy is less about Austin and more about Scott learning to accept that there is nothing inherently wrong with his child and that he is the one who needs to get his act together. At first, the film teases us with the perspective from which this story will be told. Austin, who is played by Jacob Laval, an engaging newcomer, narrates the story. The motormouthed youth gives us a speed-run of his favorite things in life, including, but not limited to, SpongeBob, chicken nuggets, dragons, and ranch dressing. He has a massive DVD collection, a massive hat collection — a multi-colored jester-style hat is his fave — and has a lizard named Marty (McFly).

While I’m sure sharing the room with young Austin was often enough to make a preacher cuss at times, Laval does embody the young boy exceedingly well. Eventually, however, the story shifts to being about Scott learning to love his son, which is not so much inspiring as it is a little uncomfortable. Yes indeed, raising a boy like Austin must be challenging beyond belief, but the mawkish array of plot conveniences don’t adequately humanize the LeRette family. The latter is especially true when Fahy, who is lovely as Teresa, is sidelined in favor of Levi’s Scott, who is basically a swole version of the schlubby sitcom father. The textured emotions and baggage of past marriages and a rocky childhood feel lived-in when Teresa brings them up. Scott’s plight is so thin it needs the strings of Pancho Burgos-Goizueta in order to try to make us feeling something.

Plus, I know a certain sector of the population hates when I do this, but it also feels very strange and contradictory that Zachary Levi — who has been very public about his stance on vaccinations and Trumpism politics in recent years — is in a faith-based movie playing a father learning that his autistic son is perfect the way he is. Film critic David Ehrlich said it better than I could: “having an autistic kid can’t be a gift from God and a curse from Pfizer — you have to pick one or the other.” His performance doesn’t bring the film down, but in more ways than one, he feels miscast, in the same way that The Unbreakable Boy feels well-intentioned but jumbles its story to the point where it unfortunately undermines its most interesting character. You know, the titular one.

Starring: Zachary Levi, Meghann Fahy, Jacob Laval, Gavin Warren, Drew Powell, and Patricia Heaton. Directed by: Jon Gunn.