Film Review – The New Boy (2023)

After six years away from cinema screens, Australian director Warwick Thornton returns with a story which draws on his childhood experiences and pairs a unique young acting talent with a multi-award winner. The result is The New Boy, not only his most enigmatic film to date, but one that comes close to being impenetrable.

For most of the 20^th century, the Australian government aimed to “breed out the black”, separating indigenous children from their parents and culture and often sending them to church missions and other religious communities for their upbringing. In 1940, a young Aboriginal boy arrives at a remote convent presided over by renegade nun, Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett). While the boy doesn’t speak and is illiterate, it soon becomes apparent that he has mystical powers and a profound interest in Christianity, especially the statue of Christ in the chapel. Simultaneously fascinated and challenged, Sister Eileen has to work out what the future holds for the boy and her personal faith.

The parallels with Philip Noyce’s Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) are immediately apparent, even though the story leads in a completely different direction. Thornton, a Kaytetye man from Alice Springs, takes inspiration from his own teenage years in a remote monastery boarding school, telling his story with his trademark powerful visuals. Creating poetry out of the barren landscape – the sunrises and sunsets, the contrast between gloomy interiors and the searing light outside – he balances them with unexpected touches that indicate a more fertile, and sometimes dangerous, land. It also adds substance to a film where, in truth, not a great deal happens.

What does happen is, in the main, internalized with Sister Eileen’s religious fervour reaching a crescendo reminiscent of Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus, but for a different reason and with a less dramatic outcome. The film is full of religious imagery, attempting to connect Aboriginal spirituality with Christian beliefs, but the relationship between the two is harder to understand, as are the origins of the boy’s healing gifts and his fascination with the Christ figure. There’s a sense, however, that Thornton is leaving much to his audience’s instincts and imagination as he tries to demonstrate how the more structured Christian religion has little or no room to accept the intuition that goes with Aboriginal spirituality.

The young actor playing the titular new boy is a revelation. Aswan Reid is a spellbinding mixture of the aloof, the innocent and the knowing and more than holds his own against an increasingly frenetic Blanchett who, while not quite at her best, is still a powerful presence. An atmospheric score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis adds to the film’s mystical fascination. But, ultimately, Thornton leaves his film sufficiently open ended so that it resides in its audiences hands. Make of it what you will. At times heavy handed, at others ethereal, it offers few answers but encourages us to question.

★★★

In UK cinemas March 15th / Cate Blanchett, Aswan Reid, Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair / Dir: Warwick Thornton / Signature Entertainment / 12A

About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

Freda is a Senior Writer at The People's Movies. A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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