PinnedUpdated Dec. 16, 2025, 2:41 p.m. ETNick Reiner will not appear in court on Tuesday because he was not medically cleared to be transferred to the courthouse from the jail, his lawyer, Alan Jackson, told reporters at the courthouse.Mr. Jackson said it was standard procedure for anyone admitted to jail to undergo medical testing, but did not give any additional details about his client. The screening is a requirement to ensure that detainees don’t need medical treatment.The Los Angeles district attorney is considering charges against Mr. Reiner, 32, who is being held without bail on suspicion of murder in the death of his parents, the celebrated Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.The Reiners’ bodies were found in their West Los Angeles home on Sunday afternoon. They had been stabbed to death, according to two people briefed on the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly.Nick Reiner, who was arrested on Sunday, had spoken over the years about his struggles with drug abuse and periods of homelessness that began in his teenage years. He worked with his father on a movie loosely inspired by his early life, “Being Charlie.”A person who attended a holiday party at the home of the comedian Conan O’Brien on Saturday night, speaking anonymously to preserve relationships, said that Rob and Nick Reiner were in attendance and had argued there.Here’s what else to know:The Obamas: Michelle Obama called Rob Reiner and his wife the “most decent, courageous people you ever want to know” and said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” late Monday that she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, had plans to see them on Sunday. Read more ›Rob Reiner: He was a popular sitcom actor before directing a slate of beloved films, including “This Is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally …” and “The Princess Bride.” He later became a force in California and national Democratic politics, championing same-sex marriage and other causes. At 78, he had four children. Three were with Ms. Reiner — Jake, Nick and Romy — and a fourth, Tracy, was adopted with the actress and director Penny Marshall.Michele Reiner: A photographer and later a producer, Ms. Reiner inadvertently altered the course of movie history when Rob Reiner spotted her on the New York set of the romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally …” The pair later married, and their real-life love story influenced him to change the ending of his most famous movie. Read more ›Dec. 16, 2025, 2:31 p.m. ETMatt Stevens and Tim ArangoMatt Stevens reported from Los Angeles, and Tim Arango from Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles.Alan Jackson in court defending Karen Read against a murder charge this year.Credit...Pool photo by Mark StockwellWhen the lawyer representing Nick Reiner emerged from a fifth-floor courtroom in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the journalists gathered there recognized him as one of the city’s most well-known criminal defense attorneys.That lawyer, Alan Jackson, has represented the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, the actor Kevin Spacey and Karen Read, a woman who was acquitted this year of murdering her boyfriend in Massachusetts. Now he is representing Mr. Reiner, the suspect in the deaths of his parents, the Hollywood director Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.Early in his career, Mr. Jackson worked as a prosecutor in the major crimes division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He was the lead prosecutor in the murder case against the music producer Phil Spector, who was convicted in 2009.On Tuesday, Mr. Jackson told reporters that Mr. Reiner would not appear in court, adding that his client had not been medically cleared to be transferred from the jail to the courthouse. He declined to answer questions about how he came to represent Mr. Reiner, who is in custody but has not been charged by the district attorney’s office.Mr. Reiner, 32, was arrested late Sunday, hours after his parents were found dead inside their Brentwood home.Dec. 16, 2025, 1:38 p.m. ETTim ArangoReporting from Superior Court of Los Angeles CountyNathan Hochman, the Los Angeles County district attorney, will provide an update on the investigation into Rob and Michele Reiner’s deaths at 1 p.m. local time.Dec. 16, 2025, 1:30 p.m. ETRob and Nick Reiner in New York City in 2016 while promoting their film “Being Charlie.”Credit...Laura Cavanaugh/FilmMagicIt was easy to contrast the personalities of Rob Reiner and his son Nick.The father, gregarious and charismatic, was a natural at repartee. Passionate about his political convictions, he was self-assured, even voluble, sometimes commandeering a dinner party discussion.His son tended to be introverted, quieter. At social affairs, he contributed tidbits of conversation, but appeared unsure of himself and more comfortable shrinking into the background.But those who knew them said they shared a sense of humor and that both could be contemplative and sensitive. And, after years of a relationship fraught with mistrust, they hoped somehow to reconnect.It was 2015, and Nick had co-written a script loosely based on his experiences with addiction and numerous stints in rehab, a tumultuous journey that had begun seven years earlier. Rob, a director for three decades who had made iconic films like “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride,” saw, if not a hit, at the very least an opportunity to bond. And so, he started preproduction on “Being Charlie,” beginning an experience that would put Rob and Nick’s own complicated relationship on display.It wasn’t the first time Rob had been inspired by his son, he said during a 2010 appearance on the “Today” show. Once, when Nick was 11, he eagerly brought a book home from school. “Dad, let’s read this together,” he said. It was the young adult novel “Flipped,” and Rob soon turned it into a film.But Nick’s descent into heroin and cocaine addiction, during which he was sometimes homeless, had created a chasm in the family, one that his sobriety could not heal. Rob and his wife, Michele, often blamed themselves, harboring regret for taking the advice of experts who pushed tough love.Backing Nick’s script was a chance for Rob to show that he was finally listening — a motive for directing the film that he did not hide.“‘Being Charlie’ was a passion project for Rob, and he made that movie for his son is all I can tell you,” Charles Berg, one of the film’s producers, said. “That was his gift back to the world — to acknowledge his son, to say, ‘I love you, and I want to share your story.’”The film’s budget was about $3 million and shooting began that April in Salt Lake City. Cast and crew members were highly cognizant of the earnest tenor of the undertaking. Michele, a photographer and a steady presence on Rob’s sets, also staunchly supported the film, even insisting that the home of the main character, who was based on Nick, more accurately reflect her own house.“It felt very personal, and it felt very intimate,” said Blythe Frank, an executive producer on the movie. “Everybody was invested in what was a kind of family project.”Ms. Frank said it was clear that Rob hoped to help give his son a voice.“I think he was really trying to understand him,” she said. “He was trying to bring him into the fold, give him an opportunity.”At the same time, it was no secret that Rob and Nick were still reckoning with who they were to each other, a dynamic that played out in full view when the two would butt heads on set.Rob and Nick Reiner discussing “Being Charlie” in 2016.Credit...Adela Loconte/WireImageBefore filming one scene at a halfway house, Rob appeared fed up with Nick’s surly attitude, and the two got into an argument in front of about a dozen people, recalled Erik Aude, a stuntman who was on set that day.“Nick was yelling, and his dad’s going off on him,” Mr. Aude said. “It was uncomfortable. It wasn’t something you want to stay in the room for. Honestly, you knew they were father and son because those are normal reactions, but they had no problem doing this in front of everyone.”The disagreements tended to be about a difference in vision and wanting to get it right. But they would dissipate and Rob would take Nick to lunch, usually with the movie’s stars, Nick Robinson and Morgan Saylor.Rob was also intent on shining a spotlight on his son throughout filming, going out of his way to defer to him on decisions or to champion and protect his screenplay.Andy Fernuik, who played Thaniel, one of the men in rehab, recalled a scene in which, at the end of a scripted line, he threw in an extra couple words of slang. His co-stars laughed. But Rob grew irate.“He started yelling at me, ‘No, you will not say that line any other way than how it’s written,’” Mr. Fernuik said.Later, however, when no one was around, Rob came up to him with a grin and heartily shook his hand. It became a pattern: Rob’s public displeasure followed by an assurance of a job well done.“The more it went on, the more I understood it was because he was doing everything to show his son how much he was going to shine,” Mr. Fernuik said.Many times, however, it seemed as if Nick preferred not to take the reins from his father. He was 22 at the time and spoke little during casting calls and table reads, more inclined to observe what transpired. On set every day, he could often be found chain-smoking cigarettes between takes or spending time with his co-writer, Matt Elisofon, whom he had met in rehab, as well as two other friends.Once, when Rob took exception with what the wardrobe department had chosen for the Thaniel character, he loudly voiced his disapproval. Then he stopped himself and called over Nick to ask his opinion.“Nick was like, ‘Dad, I don’t know,’ and Rob says, ‘What do you mean you don’t know? Is this what you want onscreen?’” recalled Mr. Fernuik.Both Rob and Nick could be intense, but those who knew them said it mostly seemed as if they were trying to work out the difficult feelings between them.There were also some heavy moments of grief where Rob was forced to relive the past. In one scene, the movie’s main character relapses in a bathroom at Venice Beach. Rob became emotional while directing, tearing up.Nick would later talk about the entire moviemaking experience as one that opened his eyes to his father’s talents.“I was like, Wow, he really knows a lot,” he said during an interview in 2016 at AOL’s headquarters in New York City. “It made me feel closer to him.”Rob, in the same conversation, said the process had made him a better father, having been forced to understand more deeply just what Nick had gone through. “It was intense, it was difficult at times, but it was also the most satisfying, creative experience I’ve ever had.”Both made references to a disconnect that had existed for a while.Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner in 2005 with their children Jake, Romy and Nick. Credit...Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesRob had bonded with his oldest son, Jake, over baseball, and the two were known to take trips around the country visiting stadiums, some of which had Rob throw out the first pitch. Jake had also, after a stint as a TV news reporter, taken the plunge into acting. Eerily, one of his latest bit parts was in “Monsters: the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” a Netflix series about two brothers who killed their parents.Early on, Rob had also described his affection for his youngest child, Romy, how he couldn’t help but sing her medleys at bedtime. “I see myself a little bit different with Romy than I was with the boys,” he told The Los Angeles Times when his daughter was 9 months old. “I’m talking much more to her, interacting much more early on.”Jake, now 34, and Romy, 27, both seemingly had a loving and playful relationship with their father, posting pictures with him on social media. “Happy Father’s Day to the man who I could talk to forever and also the man who I can sit in silence with and be perfectly content,” Romy wrote in a 2021 caption.At 32 years old, Nick came across in some ways like the middle child who feels both lost in the shuffle and like the misfit. “We tried to mold him instead of celebrating his oddballness,” Rob told The New Yorker regretfully in 2016.There was also the sense that Nick felt the weight of his father’s shadow, a pressure that Rob could comprehend as the child of the actor Carl Reiner. “I do understand him wanting to forge his own way,” Rob said in a 2016 interview with NPR. “I do know what that’s about, I went through it, and he’s brilliant and talented and he’s going to figure out his path.”The Reiners’ candor during their press tour gave the impression that the dark days were behind them. During filming, Romy had posted a photo to Instagram with Nick. “love U,” it read. Jake later shared a photo of the siblings with the caption, “The trio.”The entire family was spotted together in Los Angeles in September at the premiere of “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” a film Rob directed.And then, an unraveling into the unthinkable.The Reiners in September at the premiere of “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”Credit...Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty ImagesOn Sunday, the bodies of Michele, 68, and Rob, 78, were found inside their Brentwood home. They had been fatally stabbed. Nick was arrested on suspicion of murder and was being held without bail.Friends and acquaintances now struggle to even speak about the family.“They were my friends, and I’m dealing with it,” said Christopher DeMuri, a retired production designer who worked with Rob on three films, including “Being Charlie.”At that time, he had witnessed a father and son attempting to communicate with each other to the best of their abilities.“Their relationship was troubled, and they were trying to figure it out,” he said, “and in the movie, they did.”Dec. 16, 2025, 1:01 p.m. ETTim ArangoReporting from Superior Court of Los Angeles CountyAlan Jackson, the defense attorney representing Nick Reiner, has made a career out of celebrity clients and high-profile trials. He represented the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and the actor Kevin Spacey as they faced sexual assault charges. More recently, he represented Karen Read, who was acquitted this year of murdering her boyfriend in Massachusetts. Early in his career, Jackson was the lead prosecutor in the murder case against the music producer Phil Spector, who was convicted in 2009.Credit...Pool photo by Mark StockwellDec. 16, 2025, 12:34 p.m. ETTim ArangoReporting from Superior Court of Los Angeles CountyNick Reiner will not appear in court today, his lawyer, Alan Jackson, just told reporters at the courthouse, adding that there will not be a hearing today in the case. Jackson said his client had not been medically cleared to be transferred from the jail to the courthouse, but did not give any additional details about Reiner’s planned defense.Dec. 16, 2025, 11:42 a.m. ETTim ArangoReporting from Superior Court of Los Angeles CountyA clerk at the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, where Nick Reiner is scheduled to make an initial appearance this morning, just told the assembled journalists — perhaps two dozen people — that it was still uncertain if Reiner would appear. He was arrested on Sunday but has not been charged with a crime.Dec. 16, 2025, 9:32 a.m. ETThe Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that photographs that appeared to show Nick Reiner’s arrest were briefly posted online by its Gang and Narcotics Division, but said the images were subsequently removed. The photos, which were published by several news outlets, appeared to show Reiner being detained by officers near Exposition Park, in Los Angeles.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:55 a.m. ETMichelle Obama speaking at an event in Washington last month.Credit...Allison Robbert/Associated PressMichelle Obama said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” late Monday that she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, had plans to see the filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, on the day they were found dead in their Los Angeles home.“We were supposed to be seeing them that night — last night,” she told Jimmy Kimmel during an interview on the show. “Rob and Michele Reiner are some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know.”“They are not deranged or crazed,” she said, after President Trump had told reporters earlier Monday that Mr. Reiner was “a deranged person.”She added: “What they have always been are passionate people when there’s not a lot of courage going on.” The bodies of Mr. Reiner, 78, and Ms. Reiner, 70, were discovered on Sunday in what the police described as an apparent homicide. One of their sons, Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested on Sunday night and is being held without bail on suspicion of murder.Mrs. Obama said that she and her husband had known the Reiners for “many, many years.” Mr. Reiner was a prominent Democratic donor and political activist, enthusiastically championing causes including same-sex marriage, early childhood education and the careers of various presidential candidates.In a statement posted on social media after the Reiners’ deaths, former President Obama wrote that the couple “lived lives defined by purpose.” He said Mr. Reiner’s work reflected his “deep belief in the goodness of people.”In her interview with Mr. Kimmel, Mrs. Obama said the Reiners “were the kind of people who were ready to put their actions behind what they cared about,” especially fairness and equity.Dec. 15, 2025, 8:25 p.m. ETNick Reiner, center, with members of his family at the premiere of “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” in September.Credit...Richard Shotwell/Invision, via Associated PressThe night before Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead, their son, Nick Reiner, attended a holiday party with his father at the home of Conan O’Brien and alarmed the guests with his behavior, according to two attendees who asked not to be named to maintain relationships.Rob and Nick Reiner got into a shouting match at the party in West Los Angeles, said one of the attendees, who recalled Rob Reiner telling his son that his behavior was inappropriate. The attendee, who did not speak to the Reiners at the party, said that people seemed to be very aware of Nick Reiner’s history with drug abuse, which the family has discussed publicly.Another attendee said that he did not witness the dispute, but he recognized Rob Reiner in the crowd and noticed the younger Reiner hovering at the fringes of the informal gathering. The guest said that he and other attendees were worried and that several people commented to him on Nick Reiner’s behavior, saying he looked anxious and uncomfortable in a way that deeply unsettled them.A third person who attended the party said that he saw the Reiners but did not see the argument.Representatives for Mr. O’Brien declined to comment on Monday.Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested Sunday night, hours after Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found stabbed to death in their home in the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. Los Angeles authorities said the son was being held without bail at the city’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility.The couple — a renowned actor, director and liberal political activist and an accomplished producer — had three grown children together and were well known to their neighbors, as well as to California’s entertainment and political circles. Neighbors and acquaintances said that Nick Reiner’s struggles with drugs and alcohol were common knowledge in the affluent West Los Angeles enclave.In 2016, the father and son released a semi-autobiographical film, “Being Charlie,” about a Los Angeles teenager who abused drugs and who had a turbulent relationship with his father. At the time, Nick Reiner was 22 and said he had been in and out of rehab about 18 times since he was 15.The younger Reiner said that he had written the script during a period of sobriety, with a friend, Matt Elisofon, whom he had met in rehab. Mr. Elisofon declined to comment on Sunday when he was reached by phone.Dec. 15, 2025, 8:23 p.m. ETVideoNick Reiner Talked Openly About His Addiction StrugglesNick Reiner was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder after his mother and father, the movie director Rob Reiner, were found dead in their home. The younger Reiner had been open about his struggles with drug abuse and homelessness.CreditCredit...Laura Cavanaugh/FilmMagicAfter Nick Reiner entered his first drug treatment program around the age of 15, his turbulent life veered between rehab and homelessness, sobriety efforts and relapse.At times, it appeared as though he had achieved more stability in adulthood. But any semblance of equilibrium was shattered when Mr. Reiner’s parents, the Hollywood director Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home on Sunday.Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held without bail.For many years, Rob Reiner, the creator of beloved movies such as “When Harry Met Sally …” and “The Princess Bride,” was contending with a child in crisis. The family struggle was largely kept private when Nick Reiner was young, but as an adult he openly discussed his battles with heroin and cocaine in interviews and podcasts. He once estimated he had been in drug treatment 18 times during his teenage years.In the public interviews, Nick Reiner told anecdotes about his crises and his volatile behavior. Once, awake for days on cocaine in his parents’ guest house, he “started punching out different things,” including a television and a lamp, he recalled on the podcast “Dopey” in 2018. “Everything in the guest house got wrecked,” he said.Another time, he said, he had a heart attack on a plane because of cocaine use and woke up in a hospital.And he once threw a rock through a window at a treatment center to convince officials that he needed medication, he said on another podcast about addiction in 2016.“I was so lost — I didn’t know anything about myself or the world,” Mr. Reiner said on the podcast. “And that’s all I knew as a coping mechanism.”Nick Reiner, who is in custody but has not been charged with a crime, has openly discussed his battles with heroin and cocaine in interviews and podcasts.Credit...Aude Guerrucci/ReutersAlan Horn, a former Disney studio chairman and a close friend and longtime collaborator of Rob Reiner’s, said that family friends had known about Nick Reiner’s history of substance abuse problems but that the Reiners had largely kept the details private.He recalled that Michele Reiner had said a few years ago of her son’s struggles: “We’ve tried everything. We don’t know what else to do.”When Nick Reiner was first sent to rehab as a teenager, he recalled in the 2016 podcast, he was put in a room with a heroin addict. Though he told himself at the time that he would never try the drug, he eventually did.“I’ve noticed that when you’re surrounded by people that are so willing to go out and ruin everything just for this one thing,” he said, “you get desensitized to these really hard-core things.”When he refused to stay in rehab as an older teenager, he would sometimes end up on the streets and in shelters, telling People magazine in 2016 that he had been homeless at times in Maine, New Jersey and Texas.“When I was out there, I could’ve died,” he told the magazine. “It’s all luck. You roll the dice and you hope you make it.”Born in 1993, Nick Reiner grew up with two siblings, Jake and Romy. By the time they were born, their father was already a Hollywood hitmaker who had gotten his acting start on the sitcom “All in the Family.” Their grandfather Carl Reiner, who created “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” was a giant of 20th-century television.Nick Reiner eventually entered the entertainment industry himself.At one drug treatment center more than a decade ago, he started writing a television script with another resident, Matt Elisofon, pulling from their experiences in rehab. Unable to spend much time on the computer, they wrote it longhand.After getting his G.E.D., Mr. Reiner had planned to go to college in North Carolina but decided against it. After reconnecting with Mr. Elisofon in New York, they committed to realizing their script. With the backing of Mr. Reiner’s father, the idea became a feature-length movie centered on the tensions between an actor turned politician and a drug-addicted son.The release of the movie, “Being Charlie,” which was directed by Rob Reiner and loosely based on his relationship with his son, included a round of interviews in which the Reiners laid bare the difficulties they had faced.The actor Nick Robinson in “Being Charlie,” a movie about a drug-addicted son that was co-written by Nick Reiner and directed by Rob Reiner.Credit...Fred Hayes/Paladin ReleaseIn an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2015, Rob Reiner expressed some level of regret about how he had handled his son’s unraveling.When his son told his parents that a drug-treatment program was not working for him, Mr. Reiner said, “we wouldn’t listen.”“We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son,” he added in the interview.After years distancing himself from his family, Nick Reiner eventually moved back to Los Angeles. He and his father said making the movie had helped repair their fractured relationship.Barry Markowitz, who met the Reiners as the cinematographer on “Being Charlie,” said that although Nick Reiner had seemed inclined to stay under the radar, his parents and siblings had encouraged him to do what he loved, and he had funneled his love for writing into a movie about his life.“It was some feat that after what Nick went through, that he can pull together and write a script about his experience,” he said.After the movie was finished, Mr. Markowitz found himself embraced by the family, which he described as a tightknit, warm household. Whenever Mr. Markowitz was in Los Angeles, Rob and Michele Reiner insisted he stay with them. “Whenever I went to L.A., the door was open,” he said. “They wouldn’t have it any other way.”The children regularly ate dinner with their parents at the home in Brentwood, Mr. Markowitz said. A common scene was the entire family sitting in the living room watching a basketball game or the news — with the whole group often yelling at the TV at the same time.Mr. Markowitz described Michele Reiner with the Yiddish word “balaboosta,” a mother who runs the show. “There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for the kids,” he said of the couple.But tensions in the family remained.The night before the Reiners were found dead, Rob and Nick Reiner had attended a holiday party at the home of the comedian Conan O’Brien, according to three attendees who asked not to be named to maintain relationships.Rob and Nick Reiner got into a shouting match at the party, said one of the attendees, who recalled Rob Reiner as saying that his son was behaving inappropriately. The attendee said that it was unclear what the argument had been about but that Nick Reiner’s past struggles were commonly known.Nick Reiner was arrested on Sunday night and remains in a jail in Los Angeles County. It is unclear whether he has a lawyer.Geoffrey Mark, a comedian, knew Rob Reiner for about 30 years, seeing him at group dinners and other events. He said his friend had never been explicit about the challenges he was facing at home, but he noticed that Mr. Reiner would sometimes use a joking — but pointed — expression when asked how he was doing: “Go have children.”“It’s a humorous way of sharing with someone that there are troubles that they don’t really want to go into,” Mr. Mark said, “but that they’re there.”Reporting was contributed by Brooks Barnes, Matt Stevens, Shawn Hubler and Jason Zinoman. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.Dec. 15, 2025, 4:54 p.m. ETRob and Nick Reiner speaking about their film “Being Charlie” in New York in 2016.Credit...Laura Cavanaugh/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesEven when it was first released, “Being Charlie,” the 2016 film co-written by Nick Reiner and directed by his father, the filmmaker Rob Reiner, had an almost uncomfortable resonance with the family’s life as they faced Nick’s addiction struggles.Nick was 22 when “Being Charlie” premiered. He had been in and out of rehab since he was 15. He wrote the script during a period of sobriety, with a friend, Matt Elisofon, whom he had met in rehab, Nick said at the time.On Sunday, Nick Reiner was arrested on the suspicion of murder in the death of his father and his mother, Michele Singer Reiner. He is being held in a Los Angeles jail without bail.The film follows Charlie, a Los Angeles teenager who abuses drugs and who has a turbulent relationship with his father, a big-shot actor-turned-gubernatorial-candidate played by Cary Elwes (a star of Rob Reiner’s “The Princess Bride”). They clash regularly — over Charlie’s care, over his father’s motives as he pursues his own ambitions.Charlie (Nick Robinson) is a comedy nerd who name-drops vintage stand-up comedians like Moms Mabley and Lord Buckley. He has tried a few open mics, and he’s fast enough to freestyle rap with a friend. But at 18, he is mainly a heroin addict.The story opens with Charlie busting out of a Christian-oriented recovery ranch, hurtling a rock through a stained-glass window. Soon enough, he is stealing OxyContin pills before being packed off to another facility as his father campaigns to be governor of California.(In 2006, the elder Mr. Reiner, a longtime political activist, considered running for governor of California; he didn’t in part because, as he told The New Yorker, Nick vetoed the idea: “He said, ‘No, Dad! We won’t be able to go bike riding!’”)In the movie, Charlie’s mother is cast as a more sympathetic, and present, figure than his father. She visits her son when he makes it to a halfway house, and supports his gaining more freedom. His dad is depicted as an operator who suavely lies, to both his son and the press, to maintain his image. (Rob Reiner pushed for that unsympathetic portrayal, Mr. Elwes told The Los Angeles Times in 2015. “He would tell me he didn’t handle it well and we had to show that.”)Following experts’ advice, Charlie’s father wants him to stay in rehab over his son’s protestations that the programs don’t work for him. That, too, mirrored what the Reiner family had experienced. “We were desperate,” Rob Reiner told The Los Angeles Times, “and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.”When a romantic relationship with a fellow patient backfires, Charlie smashes a window in his parents’ home and — after a shouting confrontation with his father — drives off with one of their cars. Another relapse follows, with Charlie scoring drugs on the streets and sleeping in homeless shelters, as Nick said he had.The movie, which runs just over 90 minutes and features Nick’s brother Jake Reiner in a small part, ends on a somewhat upward turn.After a friend’s overdose, Charlie seems to want to change his trajectory. “I don’t want to die,” he tells his mother. He and his father have a teary moment of reconciliation, a scene that Rob Reiner said had been rewritten many times as he and his son came to understand more about their own relationship.“All I ever wanted was a way to kill the noise,” Charlie says in the film’s closing moments. “But the more I used, the louder it got.”“I was part of the noise, wasn’t I?” his father replies.The film received mostly negative reviews, and earned a pittance at the box office. But Rob Reiner said making it had been its own reward, a form of therapy as he and his son found a new connection.The year “Being Charlie” came out, Nick Reiner credited his mother and father with helping him. “I don’t have a sober coach,” he told People, “but I have very loving and supportive parents. That’s a huge part of it. Not everybody gets that.”Susan C. Beachy contributed research.Dec. 15, 2025, 1:35 p.m. ETRob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2023. The Reiners’ 32-year-old son was “booked for murder,” according to the Los Angeles police chief, Jim McDonnell.Credit...Kent Nishimura/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Trump seized on the stabbing death of Rob Reiner and his wife to make a baseless attack on the Hollywood director less than a day after reports of his killing, suggesting that Mr. Reiner’s criticism of Mr. Trump may have led to his murder.The attack on Mr. Reiner, so soon after his death, prompted a rare backlash against the president from some MAGA-aligned Republicans, some of whom urged the president to retract his comments.Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that Mr. Reiner’s death was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”Asked by reporters later in the day whether he stood by those comments, Mr. Trump was unapologetic: “Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person.” He added, “I thought he was very bad for our country.”The Reiners’ 32-year-old son has been booked on suspicion of murder, the police said. There was no indication from the authorities that the couple’s political beliefs had anything to do with their deaths. Mr. Reiner was found dead on Sunday alongside his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, at their home in Los Angeles.Mr. Trump’s attack brought immediate outrage, including from close allies who said the attack undercut Republicans’ calls for civility after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Prominent conservatives called for public shaming, firings and the threat of prosecution for those who spoke ill of Mr. Kirk.“A man and his wife were murdered last night. This is NOT the appropriate response,” Jenna Ellis, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer who is now a conservative radio host, wrote on social media on Monday. “The Right uniformly condemned political and celebratory responses to Charlie Kirk’s death. This is a horrible example from Trump (and surprising considering the two attempts on his own life) and should be condemned by everyone with any decency.”Over the years, Mr. Trump has shown little empathy over the deaths of perceived rivals. He criticized Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, after his death and suggested a deceased Democratic lawmaker, John D. Dingell of Michigan, was looking up from hell.His attack on the Reiners came as many were still in shock over their violent deaths.Sage Steele, the former ESPN host and Trump ally, responded online, calling the president’s post “so disappointing.” She added: “It’s comments like this that take away from the countless great things @realDonaldTrump does for America.”Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, wrote on social media that “regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered.” He added: “I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”Some other Republican lawmakers also condemned Mr. Trump’s post.“This statement is wrong,” Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, wrote on social media of Mr. Trump’s post. “Regardless of one’s political views, no one should be subjected to violence, let alone at the hands of their own son. It’s a horrible tragedy that should engender sympathy and compassion from everyone in our country, period.”Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said that this was no time to attack one’s political rivals. “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” she wrote on social media.The Reiners’ son, Nick Reiner, was arrested on Sunday night and held in a jail in Los Angeles County on $4 million bail, according to county jail records.Nick Reiner had spoken over the years about his struggles with drug abuse and bouts of homelessness beginning in his teenage years.Mr. Trump “knows no shame,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, wrote in response to the president’s post.