I watched this film just after reading Cate Blanchett’s statement that she is quitting movies. I hope she reconsiders and just takes a healthy pause, since she is such a versatile, talented actress. Fortunately, she still has several films yet to be released if her acting career is really over. In The New Boy, an Australian indie flick that has taken some time to arrive on our shores, she plays a renegade nun in the 1940s who’s running an orphanage in a remote part of Australia and has a nine-year-old Aboriginal boy dumped on her step.
The boy who never has a name doesn’t speak English so no one can really communicate with him. He spends his time hanging around, watching the other boys and trying to copy their actions, though most of it is a mystery to him. It’s clear from the beginning that he has some magical powers that he uses from time to time to heal others. But the arrival of a huge crucified Jesus statue sparks his curiosity in a way that none of the other religious entreaties have done.
Meanwhile, Sister Eileen is harboring a secret. The priest Don Peter who ran the orphanage has died, but to the outside world she’s pretending he is alive, forging his name on letters and documents, and generally running the place. She is trying to bring the new boy into the Catholic fold, but not having a lot of success, though the only English word he seems to utter is “amen.” But when the boy’s fascination with the new wooden crucifix makes her question his spiritual path, she has her own faith shaken, but eventually takes it as a sign that he has agreed to give up his former beliefs and experience his own come to Jesus moment.
The subtext to the whole film is the horror that was delivered to the Aboriginal people of Australia by the colonizers and what is lost when a culture is subdued and erased. The boy (Aswan Reid) who plays the title character is wonderfully expressive as the curious innocent who was violently kidnapped at the beginning of the film. He accepts his lot, but is slow to become one of the Christian boys, holding on to his magical world as long as possible.
It is slow film, but one that keeps you watching. Cate Blanchett turns in another of her stellar performances, which helps. The story is inspired by the Indigenous Director Warwick Thornton’s own experience but has a problem focusing the story at times. Nevertheless, it is beautifully shot, has a fabulous score, and is well worth a watch.
In theaters now.