Boy A (DVD)

Are you too happy at the moment? Perhaps you've recently fallen in love. Maybe you've got that job you've been after for so long. Or maybe you just relish the ticking along of good old everyday life. Whatever the reason, you're so damn satisfied with life that you couldn't feel much better. If you happen to be in that situation and you're looking for a bit of a downer to remind you how drab it all is, look no further: Boy A is that downer.

Of course, labelling a film as 'depressing' is hardly a criticism in and of itself. Some of the best works of art are pretty depressing. Check out Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's just that there's nothing more depressing than a film that tries to do depressing and isn't quite depressing enough. Sometimes, only a film that is completely and comprehensively crushing will do. Andrea Arnold's Red Road (2006) is a good example of a fairly recent British film that achieved this.
 
Boy A aims for this crushing feeling but, when it comes down to it, doesn't quite go all the way; falling back instead on generic standbys (I'm thinking of the ending in particular, but I won't give anything away) instead of capturing raw pain hitherto unmined by cinema. It's a shame because the film's subject matter is admirably adventurous.

We follow "Boy A" (Andrew Garfield) as he is released from prison. He's been locked up as a child for helping his friend to brutally kill a young schoolgirl. Now under a police protection programme, he is renamed Jack and begins a new life, with a new job and a new girlfriend. But how long will it last before his past catches up with him? Boy A is a brave film not only for inviting comparisons to the Jamie Bulger case, but for daring to side with the killer. For director John Crowley, he's done his time and deserves a second chance. The bad guys here are the media, for not letting him have it.

The quality of the acting wavers substantially throughout. The kids, in particular, aren't great. More fundamental problems arise, though, from the inconsistency of the film's tone. On the one hand, we get the standard soap operatics common to many a serious drama. On the other, Crowley seems to be aiming for loose, improvisational-seeming naturalism. Certain moments, particularly early on, have that fly-on-the-wall quality, as when Jack is deciding what to order in a café.

To this end, the film - perhaps surprisingly - takes cues from BBC's The Office. In fact, that sitcom is mentioned in a conversation about Jack's boss, a character who, bizarrely, is played for laughs like David Brent and thus sticks out like a sore thumb. The show's influence is more seriously and subtly incorporated into a scene in a nightclub, which fairly successfully captures an atmosphere of sleaze and awkwardness - that is, until it turns into a dismayingly conventional 'OMG THIS IZ WOT HAPENZ WEN U TAKE DRUGZ' Skins-fest.

So, at its best, the film is convincingly discomforting to watch; at its worst, it's discomforting to watch because it's unconvincing. And aside from some neat, symmetrically composed shots, the film isn't all that distinctive formally, so there is little to admire in purely cinematic terms. Extras, like the main feature, are fairly unexceptional: only a trailer and an interview with the director. Not a barrel of laughs on a Friday night, then. If life's not going well for you at the moment... avoid this film. It'll just makes things slightly worse.

Overall Verdict: Bleak - and not always for the right reasons.

Special Features:
Interview with Director John Crowley
Trailer

Reviewer: Tom René