Boy - a deserved hit

I recently saw Boy. This New Zealand film has proven a huge hit. Deservedly.

New Zealand movies tend to be gloomy, portentious, political or depressing. Not Boy. Even though it's a movie set on the East Coast in a Maori community there is no politics on display and only a tangential note that these people are poor. And, let's face it, poverty is relative. At one point the kids (who have been left alone in the care of their 11 year old cousin for a week) complain that they're having crayfish for dinner again!

The film is laugh-out-loud funny at the beginning as Boy introduces us to his interesting life, but after the appearance of his immature and irresponsible father things become more ambiguous. On the face of it his dad should alleviate Boy's responsibility for the kids while his gran is away. But he proves to be a burden. At first Boy and his dad are great mates - his dad has the mental and emotional maturity of an 11 year old after all - but gradually and with great subtlety the film's director (Taika Waititi, who plays the dad) reveals Boy's disillusionment.

I have seen some of Taika Waititi's work before (although not Eagle vs Shark his first feature) and I was very pleasantly surprised by Boy. I was expecting something much less mature and well developed, or something much angrier and more political. The film invites comparisons with Whale Rider (it is set in an almost identical community and the young protagonist is in almost the same situation) but Whale Rider was very much about the demise of Maori culture and its revival, while Boy is much more personal about the particular relationships in this family which could almost be any family with a drop kick dad and a dead too young mother. Although I enjoyed Whale Rider, I think I prefer not to be sledge hammered by a message.

Another thing I enjoyed was that the ending was mildly reassuring. The dad and his sons had a measure of reconciliation, but we knew that Boy no longer hero worshipped him. There was no violent blood bath (Once were Warriors) and no contrived happy every after (Whale Rider). These were just people learning to get on. (BTW the three main performances are excellent, especially the two young actors playing the sons.)

A sign, to me, of a quality film maker - there is a character called "Weirdo" in this movie. In any other NZ movie he would have been sinister and/or dangerous. A pedophile at the very least. Here he is just a gentle mentor to Boy's troubled little brother.