Review of Boy (2012) by Nisarg P — 21 Feb 2014

Boy is a 2010 film all the way from New Zealand about an 11 year old boy named... Boy, who takes care of his brothers and sisters for the summer while his Nanny is away. His mother has passed on and his father is in jail, that is until he shows up on Boy's doorstep with his prison buddies looking for the money that they stole before being locked up.

Boy idolizes his father (and Michael Jackson), but over the course of the film, Boy grows up and learns to deal with his uncaring father and be a stronger person. For a film that was one of the biggest hits in New Zealand's box office history, Boy comes off as something a bit on the clichéd side to me.

Audiences and critics have sang the praises of the film and that it's one of the finest films of recent memory... and I don't really get it. For my money, the best movie about growing up is still Saturday Night Fever, and that film didn't even really deal with the family dynamic all that much that way this film does.

In this film, it's the main drive of the story. Boy learns the hard way what it's like to see your idol (his father) fall before your eyes. The ending of the film really leaves that open to interpretation, but I think that's what director Taika Waititi was going for.

It's also an ending that, unfortunately, doesn't pay off well for the story that preceded it. But then again, it didn't have anywhere else to go anyway. It was just kind of done. All that being said, I have to say that I didn't dislike Boy.

There's still a lot to like about it. Oddly enough, it reminds me of The Breakfast Club in some ways. Not that either film has anything to do with the other, but it does hearken back to a time of simple storytelling, It's very playful, upbeat and cheerful, but can land some drama in your lap without expecting it.