The New Boy review – an ambitious undertaking by… | Little White Lies

The New Boy review – an ambi­tious under­tak­ing by one of Australia’s best

12 Mar 2024 / Released: 15 Mar 2024

Words by Charles Bramesco

Directed by Warwick Thornton

Starring Aswan Reid, and Cate Blanchett

Two figures, one hooded in a dark cloak, embracing a woman wearing a light-coloured dress. Dark background.
Two figures, one hooded in a dark cloak, embracing a woman wearing a light-coloured dress. Dark background.
4

Anticipation.

Cate Blanchett teams up with one of Australia’s best writer-directors for this desert-bound fable.

3

Enjoyment.

Strong performances, big ideas, but some elements work better than others.

3

In Retrospect.

Memorable for its superbly expressive central turn by Aswan Reid.

A young arrival at an Aus­tralian nun­nery begins to exhib­it unusu­al pow­ers in War­wick Thorn­ton’s fan­tas­ti­cal drama.

Curi­ous­ly mus­cu­lar for a four-foot-some­thing nine-year-old, his steely eyes pok­ing out from under sun-bleached sandy tress­es, new­com­er Aswan Reid cuts a strik­ing fig­ure as a name­less Abo­rig­i­nal child who may or may not be the earth­ly rein­car­na­tion of Jesus Christ in the lat­est film from War­wick Thorn­ton. We’re in the thick of World War Two, though at the Out­back nun­nery over­seen by Sis­ter Eileen (Cate Blanchett), they feel the fight­ing less than its atten­dant aus­ter­i­ty. The kid referred to by the title phrase came to this remote out­post as cap­tured chat­tel, but there’s an Edenic qual­i­ty of mer­cy in their duti­ful day-to-day.

Our good boy pos­sess­es super­nat­ur­al faith-heal­ing abil­i­ties tak­ing the shape of a spark that flits around the air like a glow­ing gnat, though the film com­pli­cates the white incli­na­tion to see indige­nous peo­ples as super­nat­ur­al con­duits between the phys­i­cal and meta­phys­i­cal planes. His abil­i­ty to absorb and with­stand oth­ers’ pain places him clos­er to saint­ly than mag­i­cal, an ambigu­ous vari­ant of tran­sub­stan­ti­a­tion that befits a tur­bu­lent reli­gious current.

With a mix of right­eous anger and abid­ing seren­i­ty, Thorn­ton ter­raforms the Wild West of his home nation into a spir­i­tu­al­ly parched land­scape. He also refus­es the respon­si­bil­i­ty of nour­ish­ing its inhab­i­tants, mak­ing his pint-sized onscreen avatar – in both the sec­u­lar and sacred sens­es – a sav­iour in spite of himself.

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