It’s going to be hard for me to talk about the movie I saw this morning without heaping on a mangled mass of superlatives.  Boy A, as a film, completely kicked my ass.  I got weepy.  I felt exhausted after.  It was amazing.

And I realize that I’m all wise-assy all the time so you may be waiting for the other shoe to drop, but there’s no other shoe.  I have only one shoe for you today.  Boy A was the best movie I’ve seen in 2007.  No question.

The film follows twenty-something Jack, a young man with a jet-black secret, as he works to start his life over after his release from prison.  There to help is counsellor Terry, the kind-hearted father-figure who struggles to keep Jack looking ahead, away from the past.  What unfolds is Jack’s humbling and heartbreaking struggle to start fresh and move on, hindered at every turn by the stark reality of his childhood.  Director John Crowley beautifully interweaves the stories of Jack’s present day struggles with the tragedy of his younger self.  The conflict is carried out with bottomless humility by the wildly talented Andrew Garfield as Jack.

Crowley’s touch goes far deeper than the storyline, as he assembles a movie of breathtaking scenery and careful, transfixing close-ups.  It is quiet and impossibly nuanced, and allows Garfield the space to bring Jack’s affliction to the fore.  In less skilled hands, Boy A would have been about a fight for redemption, but instead Crowley delves past this into the much murkier theme of forgiveness, and the painful fragility of life.  The result was touching and beautiful even while gut-wrenchingly sad.

If there’s one piece of advice I would offer you on this fine Friday afternoon, it’s to see this movie, by any means necessary.  It has no set North American release as yet, but if all is good in the world it will at least get a limited release and then show up in snobby DVD shops.  It may take some doing, but it is well worth the effort.

I will now go change my pants,
Reggie.