Boy

Boy is a simple but emotionally powerful story about growing up, relationships, following your head over your heart and drawing the line between right and wrong. It's easily one of the best New Zealand films ever made. It's Rich characters and humorous dialogue, entailed by the occasional light-hearted hand drawn animations delivered a hugely entertaining blend of culture, comedy and drama.

The story started on a perfect note with Boy played by James Rolleston giving his show and tell speech in the classroom. It introduced the character, his background and set the atmosphere, mood and setting all in one go without being a dull lead up. Taika Waititi (who also plays the dead beat father) did an amazing job in setting out each detailed scene with the occasional Michael Jackson tributes giving the film an even disperse of light-hearted laughs at the same time appropriately moving the plot along.

The film gave a heart aching recount on every boy's natural instinct to worship their father, whether they deserve it or not. The growth and resilience of each character portrayed superbly by every single actor from the child stars to the minor adult characters was a pleasure to watch. It still brings a smile to my face today. Pure brilliance...

http://musingsandmorsels.weebly.com/film.html

I'll start, unfairly perhaps for any new movie, by comparing it with thoughts that other NZ movies have left me with - only to explain how it left me feeling. I am smiling as I recall the movie and type this. A good sign! So, Eagle v Shark's quirkiness. Whale Rider's pathos & culture. Bro Town's language skills (who'd have thought "Egg" would be so eloquent a derogatory remark!) Second Hand Wedding's humanity, commentary on relationships & our overall resilience. Good things will happen. Every Boy's natural instinct to worship their father - irrespective of whether he's earned it or not - is shown against the halcyon backdrop of an east coast life in Godzone. I laughed out loud at Rockys apology for abuse of his special powers to knock an old fella over. I ached when Boy's Dad returned and the interactions between them - the hero worship meeting with reality; a coming of age. Taika's now customary expansion of characters was excellent - flawed, bravado filled fragile wee worlds we all build up. I have not served Boy adequately in this random review - its an amazing film. 9/10. Made me feel happy & glad to be alive and living in NZ.

Introspective narrative can work profound change, and this is a good example.

The story is simple enough: New Zealand native village; extreme poverty; passel of young kids establishing the world of the narrative.

One of these is our narrator, the Boy, about ten. His primary concern is how he appears to his mates and the local girls. Various comic devices set the tone before his father arrives back from prison. We then see some endearing shared fantasies, before Boy gets the truth about his Dad as selfishly irresponsible. The shape is generally called "coming of age." Thousands of these have been made. They have a built in minimal appeal, and great constraints on the ability to say anything new.

But this does have something new, thanks to the apparently limitless gateway of self- reference. We watch the movie that includes an inner movie of the boy's life, composed of fragments of other movies. We've had this since "Breathless," of course. The fragments have to do with roles associated with the father, mostly war movies, and about Boy, mostly Michael Jackson videos.

Here's something new: after we get all that settled, there is a second inner movie fold that appears, the Dad and his cohorts. He brings his own inner movie, different than Boy's. It is one of a rebel gang: James Dean, Marlon Brando. Boy tries to adapt his inner movie to his dad's and in the process breaks both.

Along the way, there is a spectrum of what we see: the narrator in the film, his ordinary life, his fantasies as he sees them. His fantasies as we see them. His dad's fantasies as he, we and Boy sees them.

Taika Cohen wrote, directed and stars as the dad. It is good, very good.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This New Zealand made movie had me laughing and entertained right from the outset. In fact, within the first five minutes, there were more laughs than some comedy movies manage to achieve in their entirety.

The movie 'Boy' is proof that a good script, decent characters and plenty of laughs produces a better result than big budget movies with no originality and plenty of marketing.

Go and see this -- but only if you like decent movies, 1980 references, laughing and characters you'll care about; a blend of serious under-currents wrapped up in quirky NZ humor.

For New Zealand viewers, some of the scenes will seem so familiar; something you'll be able to relate to...but anyone can watch this.

I had been told how funny this movie was, and there are quite a few chuckles in the first 20 minutes or so, and then it buckles down to show us the real story of pre-pubescence in a rural community and the father-son thing. It was explored in depth and very well too, and never gets nasty as some NZ movies can do, but still wrings your heart out. The end-piece was stunning, utilising the obsession with a teenage Michael Jackson and humour as only the NZ Maori do. I left the theatre with mixed feelings but since then I have felt buoyed up (sorry) and am remembering it fondly. Will definitely see it again and may add it to my small collection of NZ films. Others have mentioned Eagle and Shark and Secondhand Wedding, but this is more historical and captures the era perfectly. Well done all - especially to all the actors under 20, we know the adults can act, but these fellas will be worth watching out for in the future.