If there is one thing Mel Gibson understands, it is damnation. The once-lauded actor was able to bring the concept to life in The Passion of the Christ, before the scandals that knocked him from his Hollywood throne and moral pulpit. In The Beaver, directed by and co-starring Jodie Foster, Gibson portrays a man crippled at first by regret and depression, then by the domination of a strange creature that was to be his salvation. Walter Black (Gibson) lies on his bed, paralyzed from what doctors diagnose as depression, although medical labels are inadequate for his existential crisis. The toy...