Storyline:

Set in 1940s Australia, “The New Boy” is the story of a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy (Reid) who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately-balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

• Director

  • Warwick Thornton 

• Writer

  • Warwick Thornton

• Stars

• Cate Blanchett

• Aswan Reid

• Deborah Mailman

• Review 

• Overall, a beautifully photographed film amongst the beautiful landscapes and county of Australia. OK acting by the main cast and a beautiful soundtrack to accompany it. The sound design is terrific as well as the production and costume design and that’s where the beauty stops. The films narrative is convoluted and not clear and is left to major interpretation which in storytelling means it’s a weak premise with no real strong intention. It dances around the ideas of faith and indigenous culture, but it’s never fully fleshed out, disappointed coming from a first nations director. There was definitely potential there in a conceived spiritual essence of an idea which was left underdeveloped and a missed opportunity to mix faith and spirituality. The imdb synopsis stated that it’s about a renegade nun (Cate Blanchette) but that doesn’t really describe the character. The film is easy to watch, pacing is better than most Aussie films, but it just needed so much more, Aussie films have this real problem in being able to do the simplest of things – Tell a good yarn on screen. Why is that? We get this idea that we must continue to tell first nation stories BUT we cannot find a new angle or a GREAT story to tell, this story is mediocre at best and Cate Blanchette can’t save this. Doesn’t matter how many AACTA or award nominations this film gets – your larger GENERAL audience can see through the pretentious arty-fartyness of underdeveloped narrative storytelling and by attaching known actors – it tries to sell you that this a film worthy of accolades. Films are political now, not made or judged by their merit but by the politics of the government agencies and the people who have power to get them made.
  
  The film s well-made and it shows from the decent budget it was made with – but that deserves no accolade – tell a story and move me, make me feel emotion – I felt nothing watching this – disappointing because the hype didn’t watch the viewing experience.