Mallboy

I become suspicious when a film is described as being "important". Important to whom? Is it going to change my life? Or the world? When I sat down to watch "Mallboy", I was wide awake. When it was over, I was half asleep. I found it neither important nor entertaining. It bored me senseless. It wanted to be controversial and meaningful, but in the process of wanting to be, it forgot to be involving. The story of 14-year-old Shaun and his dysfunctional family is a story we've all seen before, so the trick for the filmmaker is to present it from a fresh perspective. Rowan Woods' "The Boys" tackled material similar to "Mallboy" and did it brilliantly. "Mallboy" fails because it doesn't engage the viewer. It's also dull. It has no shading. It's one of the dullest things I've ever seen, actally. Comparisons to "Kids", "Bully" and "Ken Park" are fanciful.

Mallboy is one of the most important Australian films of the last 10 years. Unlike the frequently sickly sweet suburban world of Australian soapies "Neighbours" and "Home and Away," Mallboy examines underpriveleged working class families whose lives have been shattered by crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and the inhumanities of prison life. The performances of all the major characters are very strong -- in particular the mother Jenny (brilliantly played by Nell Feeney of Phoenix) simultaneously evokes sympathy and disgust. Having had children too young, Jenny is childlike herself and clearly incapable of holding the family together -- her son (played by Kane McNay from Seachange) desperately wants attention from his father, her daughter is pregnant and she is dodging the welfare system. Jenny's life is further complicated by drugs and to add insult to injury, her husband, newly released from prison, has a new girlfriend. But in spite of this trauma, the film's power lies in mapping the strong relationship between mother and son who stagger through their troubled life together secure in the knowledge of their love for each other.

With a nod to Italian neo-realism, first time director Vincent Giarrusso takes us into the world of a working class 14 year old Australian boy. The result is a confronting and powerful work - never patronising to its characters - with a semi-documentary style that masks the great artistry that went behind it. The cinematography of Brendan Lavelle is brilliant - excellent because it is unobtrusive. The haunting music of Glen Bennie and the director is also fine.

And the performances of the entire cast are superb. You can't help but single out the work of Nell Feeney as Jenny (Shaun's mother), she will move you to tears. But at the heart of the film is the extraordinary performance of Kane McNay as Shaun - he is staggeringly good. For an actor so young to carry a film like this is miraculous - I think we will see a lot more of this boy in the future.

So bravo to Vincent Giarrusso (writer, director, composer) for creating this superb movie - it may not be a side of Australian life that we feel comfortable revealing to the world, but it is perhaps the most accurate depiction of that side that I have ever seen. And in the end you love these flawed but very real human beings. 10 stars.

Social realist film dealing with low socio-economic circumstances of a 15 yearold boy living in Melborne. I found this film useful in discussing film and media institutions/cultural representations within the context of Australian cinema history. Use of geography in this film is worth careful deconstruction. Dialogue is excellent in places, pace and space is well controlled. All in all, a fine first film.