THE
BOYS
(1997)
Director: Rowan Woods
Cast: David Wenham, Toni Collette, Lynette Curran,
John
Polson, Jeanette Cronin, Anthony Hayes,
Anna
Lise, Pete Smith
Screenplay: Stephen Sewell (based on the original
Play by Gordon Graham
Producers: Robert Connolly and John Maynard
Cinematographer: Tristan Milani
Music: The Necks
Production Design: Luigi Pittorino
Editor: Nick Meyers
Production Company: Arena Films in association
with
The
Australian Film Commission
Distributor: Globe
Release Dates
Australia: 7 May 1998
USA: 15 October 1999 (limited
release)
UK: 11 December 1998
Germany: 19 February 1998
(Berlin International Film Festival)
29 July 1999
(limited release)
Japan: 28 October 2000 (Tokyo
only)
France: 6 March 2002 (TV
presentation)
(From http://us.imdb.com)
Australian Box Office
Figures
WEEK
POSITION WEEKLY GROSS GROSS TO
DATE
1
14
73 540
73
540
2
15
80 803
186 086
3
17
70 569
290 756
4
20
53 298
369 437
6
19
41 665
528 545
After 6 weeks The Boys drops out
of the top 20
(From http://urbancinefile.com )
USA Box Office
17 October 1999: $1 284
24 October 1999: $2 373
31 October 1999: $2 930
(From http://imdb.com
)
Interviews and Reviews
Interview
with David Wenham
Reviews
from Andrew L. Urban, Louise Keller, Paul Fischer and
David
Stratton from Variety
Review
by Charles Martin
Review
by Anita Gates
Review
by Melissa Bolliger
Review
Review
by Denise Schwartz
Review
by Ryan Cracknell
All
above reviews
Awards
The Boys was nominated for and won
Filmographies
of the director, writer, stars
Reviews
by various people
Connors,
Nellie. "The Most Disturbing Film Ever Made." JUICE magazine.
Darlinghurst, NSW: Terraplane Press, June 1998, Issue 65, pp 84-87.
Article
and interviews with filmmaker and stars
Rees,
Caroline. "The Boys." Empire the Movie Magazine. London:
EMAP METRO, January 1999, Issue115, p 26.
Review
Collecting Information
Collecting
information involved first watching the film to get an idea of what sort of
film I was dealing with, then searching on the internet as that is the easiest
way to find information nowadays, and then searching by hand through
magazines. As the film was small and considered an "indie" film, finding
information on it was not as simple as typing in the title and being bombarded
with websites. The first thing I did was go to urbancinefile.com while it was
free to do so and find out as much as I could from there. I found reviews, a
synopsis, plot outline, an interview with David Wenham and the Australian box
office figure, though once a film drops out of the top 20 the figures were not
available. I entered "The Boys" into the Google search engine, but it
came up with irrelevant searches, so I narrowed the search to "The Boys movie" and
it came up with sites including Bad Boys, Sorority Boys and Wonder
Boys. So, ignoring that I went to IMDb.com (a site that had been
mentioned in the lecture and again by a friend) and gained a majority of
information from there thanks to numerous links to endless information. I also
entered Rowan Woods, Stephen Sewell and David Wenham's names into the Google
search engine to retrieve extra information, though most sites listed were
those indicated by IMDb.com that I had already seen. Once I knew the release
dates in each country I checked my collection of movie magazines (Empire,
Total Film, Premiere and Juice) for reviews but only
came up with two. Because the movie was a small one with a limited release in
most countries information was scarce, and mostly presented itself in form of
reviews.
The Boys was a disturbing movie that left me unnerved
and shaken. Information was scarce on it apart from reviews, opinions ranged
from "A chilling, corrosive depiction of the banality of evil" (David Stratton)
to "short on substance and long on inertia" (Denise Schwartz). First I will give a brief
synopsis of the film and then outline the plot in detail; I will then give my
review and thoughts on the film. The essay will then discuss the films box
office, release, critics reviews and awards it received, I will then discuss
its place in the international market and why it did better in Australia, then relate
the film to the filmmaker's previous work and finally state that The Boys is an
amazing film that leaves you with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. I
could have kept writing as there is so much to say on this film, but I'll leave
it there.
Synopsis: When Brett (Wenham) returns home from spending a
year in jail for without a single visit from his family, he discovers that
things aren't as they used to be. He attempts to regain the position of the
dominant male in the household. His brother Glenn (Polson) has a real job and a
respectable wife, Stevie (Hayes) has a live-in
"girlfriend" Nola (Lise) whom he got pregnant,
his mother Sandra (Curran) has an "Abo" boyfriend, George, and Brett is
constantly accusing his girlfriend Michelle (Collette) of having cheated on
him. As he delves deeper into his own self destruction, he removes the
respective women from the picture and leads his brothers into a dangerous game
that ends in a night of brutality.
Brett is picked up from the jail's gate by his
brother Stevie; he carries with him a wooden coffee table he made while behind
bars. He returns home to his mother's delight, and gives her the coffee table.
She stares at it blankly, unable to render a response. His girlfriend,
Michelle, anxiously waits for Brett to sleep with her, she imagines he would be
begging for it, but he strings her along and accuses her of being unfaithful. Stevie's
pregnant "girlfriend" Nola wanders aimlessly around the house uncomfortably,
and afraid. Brett discovers his drug stash has gone and accuses Michelle and
then Stevie of taking it, both deny having known about it. Flash forward to
eighteen hours later, Brett is burning his clothes in the backyard and is then
violently arrested by the cops. Present day: his other brother Glenn shows up
with his "fancy" car and girlfriend, Jackie, who insists they don't stay long
as they have to go to work. As the brothers continue to "catch up", the women
become more and more agitated. Flash forward to two days later, Glenn and
Stevie are escorted into the police cars. Present day: after Jackie's endless
attempts to convince Glenn to leave, Brett accuses her of feeling superior and
too good for them. She confronts him and explains how her whole family believes
she is above them as a family, and how she wishes Glenn would stay away from
them. She storms off, leaving Glenn behind. Brett begins to get the feeling
that they were all better off without him, and that's why no one visited him,
they were too busy living. As the brothers continue drinking, Brett takes them
back to the scene of his crime, a liquor store that he held up and ended up
serving time for causing grievous
bodily harm to the owner. Breaking his parole on his first day out, he
threatens the owner once more and leaves with a smirk on his face. After a
visit from the police, flash forward three weeks and George is comforting a
distraught Sandra. Present day: after lunch and more consumption of beer, Nola
tells Michelle and Sandra that she wants to leave. She breaks down and explains
that she's afraid, Stevie wishes her good riddance and Brett comforts her.
Michelle confronts Brett about his lies and he finally initiates sex as she
becomes infuriated with him. They venture out to the shed and begin, but Brett
is unable to perform, so Michelle accuses him of having "taken it up the arse"
in prison. Brett unleashes furiously at her and while yelling at her, he violently
bashes her head against the asbestos wall breaking it to pieces before she
manages to get away. She storms off and leaves him for good. Flash forward to
six months later, Brett calls his mum and asks her to visit him along with
Michelle whom he believes will provide him with an alibi. Sandra goes to
Michelle, but she doesn't answer the door. Present day: another visit from the cops follows as it turns
out that Nola called the police while hearing Michelle's screams. Sandra yells
at the boys, and Jackie shows up though refuses to go inside. Glenn goes to
talk to her, she asks him to stop seeing his brothers for her, he refuses and
she breaks up with him and drives away. Nola disappears after Brett discovers
she was the one who rang the police. As a result of a conversation had earlier
with Michelle Sandra finally gets the guts to confront her sons and tell them
what she really thinks of them, she once again unleashes her frustration with
the boys telling them to get out. When they start to verbally abuse her back,
her boyfriend George steps in to defend her. The boys are far from intimidated
by George, and while constantly calling him "Abo" they bash him in their mum's
kitchen. Flash forward to one day before the trial, Sandra visits Brett and
hands him a letter Michelle wrote him. He realizes Michelle's not going to save
him, he has no alibi. Present day: The boys reach a stage of drunken and drug
induced (Stevie and Glenn are both tripping) haze that sees them drive off in
search of trouble. Flash forward to the day of sentencing, the three brothers
are escorted into the courtroom. Present day: They intend to pay the liquor
store another visit but it ends up being closed, on their drive they pass Nola
hitchhiking but Stevie believes he's just wasted and he didn't really see her.
They finally stop opposite a bus stop where a young girl is waiting; they stare
at her and discuss the world. Brett puts out his cigarette and says, "Let's get
her."
As quoted by David Wenham, The Boys was "never about THE CRIME,
but the events leading up to it." (http://www.urbancinefile.com ) What
made the film so disturbing is that the attack was unprovoked, unmotivated, it
was just something they decided to do after a long day. That the film's plot
spans only a day makes the transformation from lay about thugs to murderers
even more unnerving. The Boys is one of
those films that use flash forwards to keep you interested in the events
unfolding, but as I was watching it I was waiting for the flashes to be
explained to me but they never were. You understand that they do something to
this girl, but you are left to imagine the actual crime yourself, leaving the
viewer to imagine something more horrendous than could have been shown on
screen by the filmmaker. When I first watched it, it didn't really occur to me
what I had just seen, while watching it I actually sat there anxiously awaiting
the action to begin, thinking it was just around the corner. It wasn't until
after watching it, reading some more reviews and interviews and actually
thinking about it did it occur to me how messed up and disturbing it actually
was. It was the article and interviews in the Juice magazine that shed the most light on the subject matter.
It was from there that I came to understand what had happened once the credits
rolled, that they had raped and murdered a young woman. The film had a deep
psychological effect, as they were such everyday guys it seemed so real, so
plausible hardly far from occurring in today's society. That is what made it
frightening, that this does happen. "It
could be ANYWHERE, anytime. It could be ANYONE at all." (The Bulletin, quote
from video cover) The play was apparently inspired by the real life abduction,
torture, rape and murder of Nurse Anita Cobby. Though the film never shows the
horrendous crime they commit, it just hints at it and leaves you to imagine it
yourself. It offers no actual motivation for what the brothers do, nor does it
show any type of remorse in the flash forwards, nor does it offer any sort of
explanation. As all involved in the film believe, it's a complex film. David Wenham
explains, "It was never going to be a simplistic cause and effect film.
Hopefully that will be the success of the film - the fact that you can't say,
'Ah yes, it's because of that.' The film is so complex. It's a combination of
social, economic and psychological factors. How big a factor does Brett's
impotence play in the situation, or that these boys grew up with one parent?
There are so many different factors." (Juice Magazine) What this brought to
mind was that Brett being unable to perform with Michelle left him with a need
to prove himself as a man, perhaps which was a reason for what they do. I'm not
saying that is the reason, as Wenham
said, there is no one reason; I'm
merely pointing one out.
The Boys had quite a limited
release in the US, UK and other countries, and it didn't do terribly well here
either. It debuted in fourteenth place and after 6 weeks it dropped out of the
top 20. From what I could find it only grossed around US$2930, and AUS$528 545,
its Australian takings were quite substantial for a small movie. This doesn't
mean it didn't make an impact. After all the reviews I read only a few had
anything bad to say about it. One American reviewer said the thick Australian
accents made it hard to understand, but apart from that, the critics raved
about it. Some words used to describe it included: gritty, powerful, dynamic,
disturbing, chilling, observant, draining and compulsive viewing. Some critics
compared the film to the likes of Romper Stomper and even the US Nazi
film, American History X. The realism of the whole situation is what
made the film so powerful. The characters were so average. Another reviewer
likened it to Idiot Box, saying that "The Boys sets out to achieve
[what] has already been done (in a much more enticing and palatable form) in Idiot
Box."
(Bolliger, http://eFilmCritic.com)
But apart from the characters being lazy, no hopers, the comparison to Idiot
Box seems a little confusing. The crime in
Idiot Box is planned, has a motivation and is in no way meant to hurt anyone
physically, whereas in The Boys they set out somewhat unmotivated to physically
hurt someone. When their first attempt, the liquor store owner, is halted they
seek violence in another form. Plus, I saw Idiot Box as a comedy without a funny ending; I didn't laugh nor
smile once while watching The Boys. As
the film was a small "art house" film, to encourage people to see it publicity
relied mainly on Toni Collette's star status. She was brilliant in it, though
disappeared about half way through, but because of her star turn in films like Muriel's
Wedding her face appeared on the movie
poster and video covers. The Boys was nominated for numerous awards throughout
the industry and it managed to walk away with: AFI's for Rowan Woods (Best
Achievement in Direction), Toni Collette (Best Supporting Actress), John Polson
(Best Supporting Actor), and Stephen Sewell (Best Adapted Screenplay), an
Australian Screen Sound Guild Award for Best Achievement in Location Recording
for a Feature Film, Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards for Rowan Woods
(Best Director), Lynette Curran (Best Supporting Actress), Stephen Sewell (Best
Adapted Screenplay) and Best Film and it tied with Head On to win the Reader's Award for
Favourite Australian Film. Not to mention Rowan Woods' nomination at the
Berlin International Film Festival for the Golden Berlin Bear.
The Boys was critically
acclaimed and as with most small Australian films, was appreciated the most in
its home country. As Australia is a national cinema it has difficulty
maintaining a place in the international market, Australian cinema has "the
problems of both its own distinctiveness and its own capacity to pass for being
American and British." (Tom O'Regan from lecture notes) Australian films that
do well in the international market are those that follow the Hollywood
formula, but have an added Australian "quirkiness". The camp Priscilla Queen
of the Desert, the outrageous Muriel's Wedding, the Aussie
stereotype Crocodile Dundee, and the reinvention of the musical in Moulin
Rouge, these are the types of movies that have been internationally
embraced. The Boys depicted the dark side of the Australian
suburbs and did not try to appeal to an international audience in any
particular way, the film wanted to be appreciated for what it was. The Boys was a movie
I had always heard about as being very violent but in fact it's not, The
Boys falls somewhat into the same category as Mad Max. Mad Max is
considered a very violent film, whereas most of the actual violence doesn't
occur on screen it is just hinted at for the audience to envision themselves,
similarly, The Boys rarely shows actual violence, just hints at it. Both of
these films are considered violent when in actual fact it is their refusal to
show the violence that leaves a greater impact. Unlike Mad Max, The Boys did not do
well in the Hollywood cinemas though was praised by critics. It was a film of
the nineties that was part of the film multiculturalism at the time; it fell
into the category of films with an "urban edge".
The Boys was the feature film
directorial debut of Rowan Woods, before it he had only directed short films,
mini series and TV shows. He directed shows such as Medivac, Police Rescue,
Heartbreak High and numerous episodes of Farscape. His
involvement in the Farscape series has been the bulk of his
directorial work. He has worked as an actor in movies such as: Children of
the Revolution (1996), The Roly Poly Man (1994), Resistance (1992), Compo
(1988) and guest starred on an episode of Police Rescue. He was also
the Second unit Director on the film Chopper (2000). As he has
worked mostly in Science Fiction TV, The Boys is an amazing effort as
the characters are so real and dark, unlike the bright atmosphere of Farscape. The lead
actors of the film, David Wenham and Toni Collette have played a wide variety
of characters. David Wenham was probably best known for his role as Diver Dan
in the ABC's Seachange. He went on to make films such as Better than
Sex, to an unrecognizable role as Audrey in Moulin Rouge, and most
recently as Faramir in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Toni
Collette, after breaking through as the lead in Muriel's Wedding she has gone
on to not only have a successful Australian movie career, but a Hollywood movie
career and an Oscar nomination. She has starred in films such as: The Sixth
Sense, Emma, Cosi, Dirty Deeds and Changing Lanes. Toni
Collette has proved herself as being an amazing actress with immense
versatility. She often, as does fellow actor Guy Pearce, likes to take a break
from Hollywood and come home to make an Australian film.
The Boys is an amazing film,
although while watching it I didn't find it all that good, after reading
reviews and interviews with the filmmakers the whole story came into focus. In
the span of a day the three brothers not only destroy all their relationships
with their girlfriends, they commit a horrendous crime, one that wasn't exactly
clear until I read the articles. The film offers no one motivation for the
crime, nor does it attempt to explain itself, it relies purely on the
psychology of the situation and the effect it will have on the audience. The
film was praised by critics as powerful and disturbing, though was appreciated
more so in Australia as opposed to the US, but won several awards in Australia
and was nominated at The Berlin International Film Festival. As a directorial
debut from Rowan Woods, The Boys is one of those films
that prove Australia is capable of brilliant films without all the fluff. It
greatly disturbs you when you look back at what you have just seen, the
violence is nothing; it is psychological impact it has on you that leaves you
disturbed and frightened. The tagline explains it best, "Little we know or
imagine can prepare us for the fierce and punishing impact of ...the boys." (From
video cover)
References
Connors,
Nellie. "The Most Disturbing Film Ever Made." JUICE magazine.
Darlinghurst, NSW: Terraplane Press, June 1998, Issue 65, pp 84-87.
Rees,
Caroline. "The Boys." Empire the Movie Magazine. London:
EMAP METRO, January 1999, Issue115, p 26.