The Boys are Back

Normally I don’t review movies, but this past weekend I watched a really good movie that I hadn’t really heard of before. I heard about it for the first time poking around iTunes a few weeks ago, and I wrote the name down, and this weekend when my little brother was gone with school my mom and I rented it.

The Boys are Back is a movie about Joe, a man who rather suddenly finds himself a single father. Up until when his wife is diagnosed with advanced stage cancer he has travelled a lot for work and he’s never spent a ton of time with his six year old son, Artie. Now he finds himself raising a boy he doesn’t really know, who’s mourning the death of his mother. On top of this his other son, Harry, a fourteen year old boy he knows almost less, comes to live with him, adding to the chaos.

It’s a beautiful movie about fathers and sons and loss and recovery. Clive Owen stars in a film that is a far cry from his usual action flick, but he shines as the hurting and confused Joe. Nicholas McAnulty, in his debut role, as Artie is an adorable portrayal of the little boy in mourning. George MacKay is up to the task of playing the complex role of Harry, a teenager whose life has been thrown up in the air and he doesn’t know where to turn.

This film was inspired by the true story of Simon Carr, a writer and columnist for The Independent. Read about his story here.