Boy A

I've been thinking for a while that after Hollywood stops trying to reinvent itself or more like cannibalizing itself by going back and remaking classics, mostly ruining classics, they should just look at the news, the really news, stop idolizing and picking on their own, and see what tragic or wonderful world, it can be. "Boy A" is a perfect example of what happens when the media gets a hold of a spectacular story, one that might be tragic or devastating, but it still offers enough drama to cast a spell on us. Write a good book about it ("In Cold Blood" comes to mind), adapt it into a couple of decent films, and you can certainly catch fire.

"Boy A" explores an obscure case in America, but apparently a very famous one in England, telling the story of a released convict who might have more than a few problems adapting back to society. It is essential that his identity remain secret because the consequences can be horrendous for all parties involved.

The audience's main concern at first appear to be whether the main character has been rehabilitated and is able to deal with his new freedom. Garfield's performance is so good, it brings to mind the vulnerability shown by Timothy Hutton in "Ordinary People", that of a bruised soul that is very strong but also quite close to an emotional collapse if not nurtured properly. Garfield's character is damaged from his early life to the abuse he suffers at the hand of his childhood friend, the one that eventually gets him in jail. It is not very clear how responsible he is for the crime that eventually incarcerated him, but what is clear is that he needs a lot of support, and any interference will be catastrophic.

In the end, we know there has to be some type of revelation, and it is the degree of the pain that the revelation brings that we want to see and we dread all the time. We grow to like this young man. Maybe because he might not be very different from many in our world, maybe because he is another victim of a cold and fractured society. The film will open wounds in many who have been disappointed and hurt, and it will mostly teach a few people a lesson about what we can do to prevent any more tragedies like these from occurring again.

It is an admirable achievement.

A young man is released from prison after being incarcerated since he was a child. His attempts to adjust to the outside world aren't always successful.

This isn't a feel good movie about a struggle for redemption or the effects of rehabilitation. This is a dark, gritty and realistic view of how things could be for a person newly released after a horrible crime.

There isn't a lot of graphic bloodshed; most of that is implied instead of being played for shock value. That's good; this movie doesn't need any more shock value than is already portrayed. You aren't particularly encouraged to sympathize with the ex-con, nor are you encouraged to condemn him. Instead the film makes you an objective observer to his trials and tribulations, his attempts to get into society with as little trouble as possible, the reactions of people who know and work with him.

BOY A also gets RIGHT up in your face...literally. This engrossing film treats you to a wide array of emotions and forces you to come to grips with some very serious and highly complex issues....

How should society handle a murder when its perpetrators are only 11 or 12 years old???

One of my most cherished and appreciated qualities in any film is just how intensely issues and images from the film continue to ricochet around in your brain... and how prolonged that process ends up being! Primarily based on these key factors, BOY A gets a resounding 10 Stars!

What is hardest for me to comprehend, in relation to this film is, that despite having dominated the BAFTA awards not all that many years back and showing an impressive 7.7 IMDb rating, it seems a sure bet that it has found a relatively limited U. S. audience! Soembody please explain that to me..."like I were a six-year-old!"

BOY A is hard to watch without tearing up at some moments...... Yet, I am convinced that Director John Crowley never strived to that end, it is just that the subject matter is such that it provides quite a number of emotional gut punches!

Owing to Andrew Garfield's recent turn as SPIDERMAN, hearing his name probably would not illicit a knee-jerk, "Wow! What a great dramatic actor!" But here, in a role relatively near the beginning of his on screen career, his portrayal of a 24 year old who is rereleased into society after being institutionalized For half of his life is deliciously nuanced and astoundingly impacting!

It's really hard to find anything NOT to like with this British masterpiece!

ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!

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.