What would the average person think of a father who lets their children do whatever they want or who gives them whatever they want, by having a simple policy of never saying “no?” They would probably not be looked upon as the greatest of fathers, and that’s how we come to view the main character of Scott Hicks’s “The Boys Are Back,” yet, for some strange reason, the film makes it appear as though we should think differently.
As the film begins, we meet Joe Warr (Clive Owen), his wife Kate (Laura Fraser), and their six-year-old son, Artie (Nicholas McAnulty). While at a party, Kate falls ill and it is revealed that she has cancer. Shortly after, she dies, leaving Joe alone with his son, who does not fully understand what death means. We find out that Joe was married once before to Flick (Natasha Little), and also had a son, Harry (George MacKay), now 14 years old. When Harry comes to visit, Joe hopes that he will be able to bond with the son that he abandoned six years before. Meanwhile, Joe tries to implement a more unstructured form of household rule, one that allows his kids to do what they want without too many rules.
It is this policy that makes the film seem like it is doing everything it can to point out Joe as being a bad father. The opening scene consists of Joe driving his car along the beach with several people shouting at him for some reason. It is only when the camera pulls back all the way to reveal that Artie is on the hood of the car that we realize what they were yelling about. This father is the man we are asked to sympathize with throughout the film.
Even after trying out this new policy, it is not long before he breaks it by refusing his kids something they ask for or by demanding that they do chores when all they want to do is lay around or goof off. It is as though the film is teasing us into thinking that Joe has finally found out that allowing them to do anything they want is not exactly the best policy. These kids obviously need some kind of structure to live by or he will just ultimately end up spoiling them.
Later in the film, Joe proves once and for all his unfitness to be a parent when he leaves the two kids home alone to go to a tennis match that his paper has asked him to cover. Somehow, he allows Harry to talk him into allowing them to stay there alone with no parental supervision. Of course, we can expect something bad to happen, and it does
Watching Joe trying to be a father to these kids makes the obvious ending even more annoying. It’s an ending that we can see coming from a mile away and leaves us asking how something like this could happen, or why anyone would let this happen after what Joe has done throughout the film. As I mentioned earlier, the film makes it seem as though we are supposed to be sympathetic for Joe, but his behavior makes that incredibly hard.
Now that most of the negative comments are out of the way, let’s move on to something positive. This has got to be the best performance of Clive Owen’s career and ends up saving the film from disaster. It almost makes one forget that he did films like “King Arthur” or “Shoot ‘Em Up.” He gives every scene the right touch of emotion and nearly does make us become sympathetic with his character. If it wasn’t for the material he was given, it’s very possible that this sympathy would have been achieved. It would not be surprising if he were to get an Oscar nomination for this touching performance.
The whole film is emotionally touching without becoming sappy, but again, it remains logically unsound that this man would be allowed to continue raising these kids. The first half of the film basically deals with Joe trying to raise Artie after Kate has died, and in a sense, feels like it’s stalling with long stretches where the story is not advancing until Harry finally comes to visit. Some of the best scenes occur when Harry finally does arrive that involve the bonding of the two boys.
It is mainly the story that needed some work here. It is supposedly based on a true story, which makes a lot of it all the more surprising. The emotion is here, but the logic isn’t. Joe is surrounded by characters that should have seen that things were not going well (some of them actually do), but they are unable to do anything about it because of Joe’s persistence. We are left with the thought of how a little structure would have gone a long way towards mending this family earlier instead of allowing themselves to live without boundaries and thus wander apart.
2.5/4 stars.