First things first, the reason I pounced on the assignment of reviewing The New Boy without knowing much about it was the presence of Cate Blanchett. Her last role was the brilliant and terrifying Lydia Tár in Todd Field’s “Tár” last year. The legendary actress is known for doing a variety of roles but going from playing the megalomaniac music conductor to playing an Australian nun in the 1940s’ is a huge shift for Blanchett. It is not surprising that the actor excels here as well, delivering yet another brilliant performance. However, the real star of The New Boy is the boy himself, who is played by eleven-year-old Aboriginal actor Aswan Reid.
The New Boy opens with an incredible scene of a little Aboriginal boy overpowering a policeman and running away before getting caught by another policeman. The boy, who is mostly silent and only speaks the aboriginal language,...
The New Boy opens with an incredible scene of a little Aboriginal boy overpowering a policeman and running away before getting caught by another policeman. The boy, who is mostly silent and only speaks the aboriginal language,...
- 9/16/2023
- by Rohitavra Majumdar
- Film Fugitives
Warwick Thornton is a master maker of images. The first frames of The New Boy – a sweep of dusty ground; a flash of a small boy on a policeman’s back, strangling him; a pre-war telegraph pole, all drenched in the searing white midday light of the desert – create a collage of inland Australia, a world of open spaces. The boy is duly pulled off of the policeman, put in a sack and delivered in the dark to a mission; a nun opens the door to receive the delivery. At that point, the gallery of Thornton’s frame becomes a series of golden brown interiors that could have come from Rembrandt, except that they are peopled with Indigenous boys – Lost Boys, as Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett) describes them to God – and the trio of adults who look after them.
Out in the world, their compatriots are embroiled in the Second World War.
Out in the world, their compatriots are embroiled in the Second World War.
- 5/19/2023
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
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