The New Boy

by Mike McGranaghan

The New Boy illustrates my #1 rule: It is worse for a movie to be boring than it is for a movie to be bad. You wouldn’t think the subject matter here could be so numbing. The film is about the Australian government’s former practice of separating Aboriginal children from their families and culture to “breed out the black.” Such a vile, racist policy seems tailor-made for a historical drama. This one takes a weirdly metaphorical approach that loses a lot of the meaning due to its obviousness.

Cate Blanchett plays Sister Maureen, a nun at a remote monastery where Aboriginal boys are sent against their will. Her latest charge is New Boy (Aswan Reid), a 9-year-old who doesn’t speak English and has no social graces. He can, however, summon a magical spark that he controls with his hand. The nuns attempt to initiate him into Catholicism, only to find his special ability to be an affront to their religion.

That spark is the metaphor, meant to represent everything that is special about his Aboriginal background. The longer the story goes on, the more it seems the spark is in danger of being extinguished by the sisters forcing Christianity on him. Ripping away a child’s sense of culture is horrific. There's no need to approach the concept metaphorically. More powerful would be to see the nuns coercing him into certain beliefs and away from other ones.

Instead of going with that approach, which would require in-depth scripting, The New Boy presents a series of dull, overlong scenes of the kid being out of place in the monastery, including several in the dining hall to emphasize his social awkwardness. Elsewhere, the movie gives us heavy-handed symbolism, as in a sequence where the kid climbs the massive new wooden cross that has been installed in the chapel and appears to be hugging (or maybe humping) Jesus.

Cate Blanchett exudes compassion as Sister Maureen, although she’s trapped in an underwritten role. She’s game to do more. Writer/director Warwick Thornton seems afraid to really dig into the importance of his subject matter. Consequently, The New Boy endlessly spins its wheels, failing to convey the horror of this shameful chapter in Australian history. I should have been enraged, not struggling to keep my eyes open.

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