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THE BOYS ARE BACK
Directed by Scott Hicks
Certificate 12a
***

This film is based on a real story forged in tragedy – the early death of a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend – a person whose passing has left a gaping hole in the lives of all those who knew her. 

It is adapted from a memoir by journalist Simon Carr, whose wife Susie died from cancer in 1994 while in her mid-30s. 

Arthur, their son, was five at the time. Simon Carr’s book tells of how the changes that took place in his life affected him: from enjoying work, being happily married and beginning a young family, to having to cope with unimaginable grief, and helping his son through it, too. 

In a further twist, a teenage son from a ­previous relationship ­re-appears at this trying time. He also needs his father as he goes through growing pains, and enters a household struggling to cope with loss.

Carr wrote of having a household of boys, and of how they learned to live together, get on and grow. 

Touching on fatherhood, grief, and the importance of muddling through, there are some big topics for the characters to discuss. 

Clive Owen as Joe Warr, as Carr’s character has been named, offers a believable ­exterior, but at times I found it hard to feel for him as much as I wanted to. He deserves sympathy, but instead you feel at times he is a bit of a piece of work.

The film promises to make much of Joe’s adventurous streak, as if the three boys living together were like The Goonies. But it also does not play down the responsibility Joe feels, and furthermore shows him acting at times extremely irresponsibly as he too struggles to come to terms with his new situation.

You can’t not feel sorry for Carr and what he went through – there is nothing you can say to someone whose partner has died in such tragic circumstances. But the screen writers have managed to drain away sympathy built up in the opening scenes as we watch life drain away from his wife. 

For example, they make a big song and dance over the fact his house becomes a total tip and doing the laundry is a new experience. So his poor wife did everything while she was well enough, right? Nice. And then there is the knowledge that he got someone pregnant behind his first wife’s back and then ran away to Australia when his first son was aged six. Nice, again.

Furthermore, seeing him stomping through the polished halls of an extremely expensive public boarding school where he has banished his older son Harry to, and then trying to persuade this teenager who has spent around 20 minutes in his dad’s company that he cares about him, again makes you like him less than you want to.

I suppose these ­elements should be applauded as it shows that humans are fallible and people make errors, mistakes. The lead man is not impossibly nice. 

But still, being a chauvinist who let his wife do everything while he gallivanted about writing comment pieces on sports topics means it is harder to warm to him as you would have wanted to.

The standout performance has to be that of six-year-old ­Sydney-born Nicholas ­McAnulty. 

Bearing in mind his tender age, his understanding of a complex role makes him believable. 

George MacKay as older brother Harry is also fantastic: he has that moist-eyed and wobbly-lip reaction to his unenviable circumstances just right, while still trying to maintain that dignity teenage boys seek.
DAN CARRIER