The Boys Are Back

Dead wife, problem children, piles of housework, and the bloody tennis all leave Clive Owen straining under the pressure. Paul Martin salutes the star of The Boys Are Back for rising admirably to the challenge, and curses the lazy slumps into cliché which undermine his efforts.

Audiences have grown accustomed to actors vaulting from the sun-soaked shores of Australia all the way over to Hollywood, where they land right at the top of the movie industry tree. From Kidman to Gibson, to the late Heath Ledger, on to happy dude of the moment Sam Worthington, the talent invasion from the land down under has proven a most successful chapter in recent cinema history. Just one such winning import has been cuddly old Geoffrey Rush, the film star with the nose you most want to reach out and honk, and who of course first came to global attention with his performance in Shine, the 1996 biopic of pianist David Helfgott. That flick earned an Oscar for Rush and also earned Academy Awards nods for its director Scott Hicks. And the latter wields the megaphone on The Boys Are Back, in which the above-identified trend is put in reverse, and an already established movie star is dropped into a primarily Australian-set and shot tale.

Hicks' movie is derived from the 2001 memoir of almost the same name by journalist Simon Carr, chronicling his experience of bringing up his two sons following the death of his second wife. The source material has been amended somewhat for its big screen transfer ('Inspired by a true story...' the commencing title card tells us, as if slyly trying to wriggle its way out of any commitment to factuality), with Carr probably accepting of the fact that the name of his filmic alter-ego has been magically transmuted to Joe Warr and absolutely flipping delighted that this doppelganger comes in the chiselled shape of Clive Owen.

The movie begins with tragedy; Joe's Australian wife Katy (Laura Fraser) collapsing at a party and being diagnosed with terminal cancer, to which she swiftly succumbs. This bereavement leaves Joe trying to balance care of young son Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) with his own grief, while also keeping on top of his work as a top newspaper sports writer (clearly deemed to be an infinitely more palatable and exciting journalistic vocation than Carr's own calling in the political sphere). Joe possesses very clearly delineated parenting strengths and weaknesses, being Artie's go-to guy when there is a water-pistol or pillow fight in the offing, and as much use as a dinghy in the Sahara when the little guy needs some tender, loving care. Over time, man and boy hit upon a ramshackle system that kinda works for them, only for it to be whacked out of kilter when Harry (George MacKay), Joe's teenage son from his first marriage, arrives in Oz for an extended stay.

Clive Owen, like Hicks, had his own Oscars moment in the sun - his coming five years ago when his supporting turn in Mike Nichols' Closer looked destined to guide him up to the stage of the Kodak Theatre as a winner. As history turned out, Morgan Freeman came away clutching the diddy statue for Million Dollar Baby, and Owen was left sat in the stalls, clapping and smiling politely. Since that fateful evening, the likes of Derailed, The International, and Shoot 'Em Up have all punctured substantial holes in the dream of Owen as a fully-fledged Brit-produced superstar for the twenty-first century.

Well, Owen's dominant turn as Joe Warr certainly inflicts no further damage to his rep, and actually does more than a bit to plug a few of the leaks. In addition to starring in The Boys Are Back, the British actor also exec produced the movie, and his evident commitment to the project manifests itself in a strong central performance. Owen's largely unreformed lad is believable; empathetically flawed rather than the kind of one-note absolute so beloved in the movie-verse. His personality does not undergo any extreme makeover and he has no grandstand cathartic moment. The changes wrought in him via his relationship with his sons are more subtle and organic. A bit more like real-life you might say. The Boys Are Back is at its strongest when it focuses on Joe's idiosyncratic method of bringing up Artie and Harry, with the audience never really being able to say for certain if his land-of-do-as-you-please approach to parenting is wonderful or woeful.

While the father-son aspect is imaginatively handled, originality is conspicuous by its absence elsewhere. None out of tutting mother-in-laws, home alone house parties, cute single mums, and frosty ex-wives can have many complaints about being under-represented at the movies. Yet they all show up in The Boys Are Back, just daring you to yawn yourself into a coma. The Australian and later UK-set scenes are photographed with a tourist's eye, with the film turning into a glossy promo video when Joe trundles off to the Australian Open in Melbourne. It all looks holiday brochure delightful, without actually being very visually interesting.

Carr's memoir may be an interesting one. But, beyond the efforts of Owen, the spawned film never gives much of an indication of why it deserves its existence over a million similar stories.

Rating on a scale of 5 honks of Geoffrey Rush's nose: 2.5
Release Date: UK = 22 January 2010
Directed by: Scott Hicks
Screenplay by: Alan Cubitt
Starring: Clive Owen, Nicholas McAnulty, George MacKay, Emma Booth
Cert: 12A
Running time: 104 minutes