The Boys are Back
Winter 2010 Features series
Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 4:00pm
Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 7:00pm
Acadia Cinema's Al Whittle Theatre
450 Main Street, Wolfville, NS
Directed by Scott Hicks
Starring Clive Owen, Laura Fraser, Nicholas Macanulty, Julia Blake
Rated NR ·
1h 31m
Australia
English
The Boys Are Back marks the triumphant return of director Scott Hicks following his Academy Award-winning film Shine. Based on the memoir by Simon Carr, it stars Clive Owen (Children of Men, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) as Joe Warr, a habitually roguish sports writer living in Australia who becomes a single parent under tragic circumstances.
After his wife dies suddenly, Joe is saddled with the responsibility of raising Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) and Harry (George MacKay), his two young sons from different marriages. Both boys desperately need their father. Artie struggles to cope with the loss of his mother, while Harry, who’s visiting from England, yearns to understand why his dad left him and his mother in London. Determined to reunite his family, Joe devises a Peter Pan-like strategy of no rules whatsoever, only to find he has a lot to learn about fatherhood and about himself.
Poignant and humorous, The Boys Are Back is a gentle and smartly played story enlivened by drama and tremendous acting. The multi-talented, charismatic and moody Owen shines as Joe, his performance complemented by Hicks’s toned-down direction, which gets close to the actors and conveys their unspoken feelings without becoming bogged down in sentiment. Heart-rending and honestly emotional, The Boys Are Back is handled with equal amounts of tenderness and understanding as it explores what it means to be a parent.