Boy A

The Christian author Lewis B. Smedes once said that, "to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." John Crowley's Boy A is a powerfully gripping film about what happens when we fail to forgive ourselves for wrongdoing and give society the opening to move in and assuage our guilt. Jack Burridge (Andrew Garfield) has been released from prison after serving fourteen years for a murder that he helped commit when he was ten years old, but the struggle to recover his life has just begun.

Adapted by Mark O'Rowe from the novel by Jonathan Trigell, the story is a reminder of the notorious 1993 Jamie Bulger case when two ten-year-olds were convicted of murdering Jamie Bulger, aged two, although Trigell says that his inspiration for the book was a friend of his who served prison time as a juvenile and turned into "a lovely lad." In the Bulger case, the British media portrayed the two boys as evil savages, ignoring circumstances that might have compelled them to commit the act. Sadly, Jack's release is also trumpeted in the media with a scare headline about "evil coming of age" and a drawing of how he might look today.

Known at their trial only as Boy A and Boy B, both Jack (whose given name was Eric Wilson) and his friend Phillip (Taylor Doherty) were incarcerated for the brutal murder of a young female classmate, yet the full details of the crime including what may or may not have been Jack's role are never fully explained and the surrounding circumstances revealed only in sporadic flashbacks. We learn that both boys had a childhood of poverty and neglect. Eric had an alcoholic father and a mother stricken with cancer and Philip was sexually abused by an older brother, yet Crowley never uses their circumstances to justify their crime.

The film opens with Jack being assisted by his counselor, his uncle Terry (Peter Mullan), on his release from prison. Terry gives him a present of a pair of "Escape" brand sneakers and helps him to find a new job at a delivery service and obtain living accommodations with Kelly (Siobhan Finneran), a kindly woman who agrees to house him temporarily. As a cover, he tells his new boss and co-worker Chris (Shaun Evans) that he did three stints in prison for stealing cars when he was much younger. Jack makes a positive adjustment at work and falls for office secretary Michelle (Katie Lyons), known affectionately by her mates as 'The White Whale". Their relationship at first is awkward, especially when Jack is given Ecstasy at an office party and lets loose in a wild, spasmodic dance, and later, engages in a violent brawl while coming to the aid of a friend.

Slowly Jack and Michelle find much in common and one of the loveliest scenes in the film is when they snap photos of each others while taking a bath together. As Jack begins to get his life together, he remains fully aware of the need to guard his secret and his anxiety that others will discover it is always evident. All the while, Jack is supported by Terry, and when the boy rescues the victim of a car accident to become a local hero, Terry calls him his "most successful achievement." Things get complicated, however, when Terry's estranged son (James Young) comes to live with him and begins to show resentment about his father's closeness to Jack. Eventually this entanglement will be the trigger for the realization of Jack's (and our) deepest fears.

Boy A is a compassionate and disturbing film that won numerous BAFTA awards for acting, directing, editing, and cinematography, though it started out as a made for TV movie. As Jack, Andrew Garfield turns in a superb performance, allowing his face to reveal his vulnerability and his changing moods to reveal the tightrope on which he is walking. Though the film has moments of pathos, it is not without grace. We cling tenaciously to those moments of transcendence, sensing that they might be fleeting, but knowing that they will never be forgotten.

Lately there have been a lot of movies about real life situations.And most of them were good.But this one definitely jumps out from all the others. First of all,The story is unique.I truly don't think that this kind of story has been used before.It grab your attention from its beginning ti its end.Secondly,while watching this movie I have seen some of the greatest performances lately.Actors aren't well known but I am sure they will become soon if they keep it up like this.At moments I felt as if I were a part of this amazing story,and that is one of the greatest qualities a movie can have. All in all,this is a must see movie.At times it pictures joy,at times it pictures reality,at time it pictures pain but most of the time it pictures human behavior towards someone unusual,someone we aren't used to meeting every day.And finally it shows the great strength from the main character to overcome all the obstacles in his life,he accepts his reality and he learns to deal with it.It pictures human nature. So if you like touching movies,filled with lots of emotions,showing the life as it is,than this is a must see.And trust me - you won't regret it...

We have all came across the stories and events of young children committing terrible crimes. They must be evil and need to be locked away as they are clearly not the same as you and me are they? Well what if they were the same, only they had a moment of madness, a moment that they did without thinking when they were young enough to know it was wrong but not too fully realise the full extent of their actions? This film does what all great films do, it educates and opens your eyes and mind to new on suggestions, in a sense it widens your experiences. If you really let it this film will get into your head and cause you to fight with your preconceived ideas on punishment for people or whether they deserve forgiveness.

This is a great film, I really liked it but I felt uncomfortable during most of it because I knew deep down it was just asking me a question. I know what the lead character did is wrong, I know he was a child when he did it, but now you see him in a new life, touching other people's lives. The film does have an ending for you but this is not the point of the film. The really ending is in your head and it stays with you, "are you are willing to forgive someone like Jack?"

BOY A is a film that moves the audience in ways few other films do. Part of this is the subject matter, part the solid drama of the novel by Jonathan Trigell on which Mark O'Rowe based his brilliantly understated screenplay, part the sensitive direction by John Crowley, and in large part is the cast of remarkably fine actors who make this impossibly treacherous story credible.

'Boy A' refers to Eric Wilson (Alfie Owen) who was jailed for a crime with his friend with whom he was associated as a youth. He has been released from prison and under the guidance of his 'parole officer/adviser' Terry (Peter Mullan), the now young adult is renamed Jack Burridge (Andrew Garfield) to protect him from the public who still remember the heinous crime of which he was convicted: Terry warns Jack to tell no one his real identity. Jack is assigned a new family and finds new friends in this strange world outside prison walls, but he is still haunted by the crime that changed his life. How Jack relates to his first female relationship and survives the bigotry of his classmates and city folk and finds a way to hold onto life despite his childhood 'sins' forms the development of this story.

While the entire cast is excellent, Andrew Garfield's performance as the guilt ridden needy Eric/Jack is exemplary. There are many issues this film deals with in addition to the trauma of starting life over after imprisonment, issues that are universal in nature and that probe our psyches for answers that are never easily resolved here. It is a brilliant little film from Canada. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

This movie hearkens back to the great working class British film dramas of the 1960s. Inspired, I believe, by an actual crime of about a decade ago, in which one child killed another child, the movie provocatively imagines the life of the killer many years afterward. At one point the protagonist is called a monster by a character who has never met him. I was reminded of the cover of a major news magazine at the time of the Columbine massacre, which featured a picture of the adolescent killers with the caption "monsters." I thought to myself that, however disturbed, these are still human beings more like than unlike the rest of us, and what does it say about the rest of us if we deny their humanity and refuse to look at the source of their disturbance? This is the very starting point of "Boy A" and the conclusions it reaches about "the rest of us" are bleak. This is a deeply, disturbingly sad movie. I found it intensely involving, and intensely moving. However, if you watch it, be prepared for a vision of humanity so dark that the most humane character in the story is a murderer.