Boy

Boy is a warm, curiously endearing coming-of-age story
set in that that now quaint and vanished epoch when Michael Jackson could be
praised — without a shred of irony or melancholy — as the most amazing person
on Earth. The gloved wonder looms like a sparkly constellation far above the
head of the title hero, an 11-year-old Maori lad who lives in a gorgeously
rustic New Zealand coastal town, along with his weirdo younger brother, some
cousins, their nan and an ornery pet goat. Boy‘s cheerfulness and
boundless imagination acts as a buffer to poverty and loneliness; his mother is
dead and his erratic father is more a legend than a parent at this point.

When his dad (Taika Waititi)
does roll back into town after a lengthy jail stint, his son must reconcile the
sometimes-embarrassing truth with the heroic fables he’s spun. Dad is a dreamer
himself, a scruffy scam artist filled with big talk and big goals, but little
ability. Alamein (named after the World War II battle) has a cool car and a
leather jacket with a logo on the back, though his “gang” consists of a pair of
dimwit stoner buddies. While he’s mostly back in town to find a pile of buried
loot, he does make attempts at bonding with his sons. Although Dad compares
himself to the Incredible Hulk, in that he sometimes gets angry and breaks
things, he’s usually trying to do good.

This is the second feature
for writer-director Waititi, who made the adorably funny but excessively
winsome indie romance Eagle vs. Shark back in 2007. Boy is a
richer, more affecting film, with real emotion behind all the funky, homemade
visual invention and borderline glibness, with smart, natural performances
helping to even out the quirk. This little charmer fits right in with recent
years’ Submarine and Son of Rambow, other clever puberty sagas
set in ’80s, but Boy hums with its own distinct deadpan tingle. The
creative Waititi could be called a Kiwi Wes Anderson, which is not a slight,
but a hope that there are more films as good as this just around the corner.

This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2012.