BOY (2010)

New Zealand writer/ director Taika Waititi (currently tearing up the Multiplex with THOR: RAGNAROK, his bubble-bursting MARVEL rethink) drew on personal memories to enrich this modest, fictional coming-of-age charmer. Set in the mid-‘80s, it’s Boy’s story (that’s the boy’s name, ‘Boy’), a 12-yr-old cut-up & Michael Jackson enthusiast thrilled to have a long absent father home during school break. (Q: Is ‘summer’ school break a winter event Down Under?) Boy lost his mom a few years back, and now lives with a kid brother & a gaggle of cousins under the care of their Grandmother. But she’s off to an out of town funeral and Boy's in charge of the household. Enter Dad, along with a pair of prison pals, hoping to find a cache of cash buried somewhere in a nearby field. It supplies the main action as the scales begin to fall from Boy’s eyes and fanciful dreams about Dad hit a brick wall of reality & personal shortcomings from a criminal past. That’s Taika Waititi himself as the wayward Dad, a striking screen subject, threatening & funny at one & the same time. (Quite an all-round entertainer, too, as seen in some fantasy elements, including a full-out musical number served up as encore.) Yet so immature, he’s less parent than irresponsible big brother. It makes some of the film’s more serious moments play out like pre-teen variations of Brandon de Wilde crashing up against the moral foibles of Warren Beatty in ALL FALL DOWN/’62 or Paul Newman in HUD/’63. (And give yourself extra points for spotting the Boo Radley reference.) Waititi gets some great work from his cast (the kid brother, Rocky, who believes he’s got suggestive powers, is a real find), though he sometimes overworks scenes with edits and a tendency to be too loosey-goosey for the film’s good. But tone & vision are nicely specific, touching & funny, with a real feel for local color & unforced composition. He’s the real deal.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Between the accents & some Maori patois, the dialogue can be a challenge. You’ll have to tough it out as the Kino Lorber DVD comes without English subtitles, but you’ll pick up what’s needed.