Mel Gibson must be quietly pleased with Charlie Sheen’s meltdown; after all, it detracts from his own public falls from graces, of which there have been a fair few of late. There’s the drinking, the alleged racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and domestic violence. Oh and a nice line in recorded phone calls with his girlfriend. That’s pretty much a full house of hate right there in his hands.

As far as the saying ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ goes, there should be a special caveat that reads ‘unless you’re Mel Gibson’. The cast and crew were so unhappy that Gibson was down to make a cameo in The Hangover II that director Todd Phillips decided against it.

With a career seemingly sent into early retirement, long time friend Jodie Foster has possibly come to his rescue by asking him to star in this curious project, which she directs and co-stars in.

You would think that being a CEO of a toy company would be a fun job for anyone; not so for Walter Black (Gibson). Yes he’s a CEO and a family man, but Walter is also suffering from manic depression. Despite the support of his wife Meredith (Foster), Walter is a broken man who just wants to close his eyes and sleep.

His condition takes its toll on his wife and family, so much so that Meredith asks him to leave home. Just when Walter couldn’t think of getting any lower he discovers a new rung to climb down. As he takes some of his things out of the back of his car on his way up to a motel room, he notices a small brown hand puppet and takes it with him.

Feeling suicidal, Walter decides to take his life; after one botched attempt he’s about to try one last time when the beaver puppet starts talking to him. Whether it’s the odd British accent, or the fact that the Beaver is making some kind of sense, Walter responds to him. So much so that with the Beaver’s help, he starts to make inroads getting his life back on track again.

Walter may well be feeling better taking advice from his puppet, but his family still need convincing. Not so much his young son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart), who is not only enjoying having is dad back but also having a new friend in Beaver. His wife and teenage son Porter (Anton Yelchin) however, are still struggling with the concept. Porter especially, who has already compiled a growing list of similarities between himself and his father, in a determined attempt to rid him self of all these traits.

But can a hand puppet of a beaver really put a broken man back together again?

For the last time Mel stop calling me a pussy, I'm a bloody beaver man!

A film about how a talking beaver puppet takes over a man’s life sounds like the perfect material for a black comedy, but despite some awkward laughs, The Beaver is a drama that tackles a serious mental health issue in a truly unique way.

The success of this film relies on whether or not you can accept the hand puppet as a character in its own right. This is similar then to the classic film Harvey inasmuch that audiences were asked to accept that Jimmy Stewart really had a relationship with a six foot invisible rabbit. It’s a tall order, but one that isn’t unattainable.

The key to whether it works or not lies in the puppet-gloved hand of Gibson. It’s debatable whether it takes a broken man to play one, but it’s obvious that Gibson confronts some demons; he’s already admitted to suffering from manic depression himself, so there must have been an element of life imitating art for the actor.

Foster could have easily concentrated on the Beaver puppet all the time, creating the illusion that it had control over Walter. The fact is however, that by allowing one and all to hear the Beaver’s words come from Walter’s mouth, no one is under any disillusion as to who is actually talking. This firmly establishes that the story is about a man suffering from a real problem, and that there’s no whimsical subtext involved.

As to why Gibson adopts a British accent that sounds eerily like Ray Winstone (with whom he worked with in last year’s Edge of Darkness) is unclear, although it was certainly wise to avoid, say, a Rastafarian accent for instance, considering some of the allegations against him, so it was probably safe ground from that point of view.

Gibson does play a man down and nearly out convincingly. For starters, the 55-year-old has never looked so old on screen before. His face no longer shows any signs of the heartthrob status he once had during his Mad Max days, looking so wearily weathered as he does. And between himself and director Foster, the pair pull off the idea of the Beaver’s voice being an extension of Walter’s voice to replace his own which he’s clearly lost.

There’s also a nice parallel between a father that’s lost his ‘voice’, and his son Porter who has the ability to adopt the voices of others in order to write papers – at a price – for fellow students.

Even though Anton Yelchin is on familiar ground to a certain extent, playing the character he played in the underrated TV series Huff, he proves yet again that he’s got an older, wiser head on such young shoulders. Certainly between himself and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) the pair give excellent accounts of themselves considering who they’re up against.

In fact the only one who doesn’t really make an impact, surprisingly, is Foster; perhaps she decided to sit back a bit and take care of the directing side, which she handles with an expected assuredness.

The only front the film lets itself down on is warmth; Gibson does well in giving his puppeted co-star a voice, but although it has personality, it lacks any real charm. But in the pair’s defence, if the Beaver did run off at the mouth like a stand-up comedian, it would have been harder to validate.

But it’s not just the beaver that’s on the chilly side; the film struggles in achieving any meaningful level of emotional depth. Although the see-saw relationship between father and son is handled well, it eats into a lot of time at the expense of that between husband and wife. Sparks between them especially, very rarely fly. Overall, the relationships between the entire family are just a bit too sanitised.

This shouldn’t deflect from the film’s bravery though; not only does it tackle a widespread problem, but it does so coming at it from the most obtuse angle possible. So from that point of view, you’ve really got to hand it to that beaver puppet.