Boy A (2007)

Director:

John Crowley

Writers:

Jonathan Trigell (novel)
Mark O'Rowe (screenplay)

Release Date:

4 September 2008 (Singapore)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Who Decides Who Gets A Second Chance?

Plot:

The story of a young ex-con Jack, newly released from serving a prison sentence for a murder he committed as a child.

Plot Keywords:

Prison | New Identity | Murder | Friend | Secret

Awards:

10 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Andrew Garfield	...	Jack Burridge
Peter Mullan	...	Terry
Siobhan Finneran	...	Kelly
Alfie Owen	...	Eric Wilson
Victoria Brazier	...	Teacher
Skye Bennett	...	Angela
Madeleine Rakic-Platt	...	Schoolgirl
Josef Altin	...	Bully
Dudley Brewis	...	2nd Bully
Leigh Symonds	...	Eric's Dad
Maria Gough	...	Eric's Mum
Taylor Doherty	...	Philip Craig
Jeremy Swift	...	Dave
Shaun Evans	...	Chris
Carlene Hanson	...	Waitress

Also Known As:

Boy A (Greece) [el]
Boy A (Italy) [it]
Boy A (Japan: English title) [en]

MPAA:

Rated R for language, sexuality, some disturbing content and brief drug use.

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14A | USA:R | Singapore:M18 | South Korea:18 | Sweden:11 | Finland:K-15 | Germany:12 | Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Manchester, Greater Manchester, England, UK

Company:

Cuba Pictures

Movie Connections:

Features A Place in the Sun (1951)

Soundtrack:

Floor Basics

beautiful and bleak

This movie hearkens back to the great working class British film dramas of the 1960s. Inspired, I believe, by an actual crime of about a decade ago, in which one child killed another child, the movie provocatively imagines the life of the killer many years afterward. At one point the protagonist is called a monster by a character who has never met him. I was reminded of the cover of a major news magazine at the time of the Columbine massacre, which featured a picture of the adolescent killers with the caption "monsters." I thought to myself that, however disturbed, these are still human beings more like than unlike the rest of us, and what does it say about the rest of us if we deny their humanity and refuse to look at the source of their disturbance? This is the very starting point of "Boy A" and the conclusions it reaches about "the rest of us" are bleak. This is a deeply, disturbingly sad movie. I found it intensely involving, and intensely moving. However, if you watch it, be prepared for a vision of humanity so dark that the most humane character in the story is a murderer.