Going by a superficial examination of director Scott Hicks' latest human drama, The Boys are Back, it might prove incredibly difficult to envision how the story, detailing the death of a spouse, healing through father/son bonding and the struggle to balance personal and selfless agendas in life, could avoid caving to contrived Hollywood sentiment and easy storytelling cliché. However, bearing this concern in mind, Hicks' film can be seen as affirmation to the fact that real stories of loss and emotional rebirth can be told without simply succumbing to excessive saccharine convention while retaining their authenticity, as The Boys are Back fuses humour, heartbreak, power and poignancy with the greatest of ease and with a complete lack of pretension, feeling impressively real and all the more resonant because of it.

While the film could be described as a challenging watch due to its upsetting subject matter, more challenging (in an entirely positive sense) is Hicks' refusal to provide the viewer with 'easy answers' or superficial narrative or emotional closure. Rather than providing a streamlined narrative filled with requisite Hollywood exposition and filler scenes, the film appears to simply jump from scene to scene, providing a clear sense of an overarching narrative, but with more of a clunky, episodic flow, devoting nearly as much emphasis to seemingly banal scenes as Owen's character struggling to do the laundry or leisurely sequences of the boys playing (framed by the sumptuous scenery of Southern Australia)as more pivotal plot points. However, such a narrative style amplifies the sense of realism of the story, as if Hicks' cameras simply happened across the events unfolding rather than them being carefully predetermined for maximum emotional effect, as one might see in a more carefully tailored Hollywood film. Similarly, despite the superficially fragmented sense of narrative, through representing seemingly inconsequential moments interspersed with the major emotional scenes, Hicks' story paradoxically feels all the more flushed out, hinting at a much grander story looming beyond its collection of trace moments, and feeling all the more realistic and impactful because of it.

However, Hicks' film truly excels at providing moments of raw, often tear-jerking emotion, without them ever seeming forced or false. The subtlety and abruptness of Owen's wife falling ill is all the more devastating through its lack of overt begging for sentiment, and many of the scenes of Owen attempting to cheer up his sons are likely to leave few dry eyes in the house through their overwhelming charm and the sheer naturalistic joy they evoke. As such, while the film is not without its occasional faults (rocky patches of dialogue crop up throughout and the story begins to drag as it approaches the end),its sheer power, emotional poignancy and Hicks' refusal to beat the audience over the head continually instils the film with life and immediacy, making it a perpetually interesting watch.

However, as with many such intimate human dramas, it is the strength of the central performers which really drives the film home. Clive Owen is simply flooring as the struggling sports writer attempting to find equilibrium between his own concerns and grief and taking care of his two sons after the unexpected death of his wife. Giving a performance brimming with pathos but also necessary charm, Owen easily delivers his best work to date: a magnificent, unshowy and achingly true portrait of a man in crisis which proves utterly unshakable after the film is done. However, as capable as Owen is, the performances by Nicholas McAnulty and George MacKay as his two sons (younger and older respectively),who prove just as proficient at delivering staggeringly honest, powerful, charming and heartbreaking performances of two boys caught between acting their ages and dealing with emotional trauma potentially beyond their capacities. Laura Fraser is also a heartbreaking and memorable presence as Owen's tragically deceased wife, seen largely in imagined conversations with him throughout the narrative.

Whether extracting tears of heartbreak or cheers of joy from the audience, Hicks' The Boys are Back proves a remarkably effective yet impressively low key drama filled with enough scrappy humour to provide much needed balance. With astonishing performances sure to attract awards attention, the film will hopefully begin to garner more widespread recognition and attention, which it unquestionably merits and deserves.

-8/10

At its core The Boys are Back is nothing new; tales of heartache and sorrow, and the plethora of emotions experienced after a loved one passes away, are a staple of the drama genre. It's thanks to novelist Simon Carr and screenwriter Allan Cubitt that Boys manages to feel fresh - albeit with slightly annoying characters, more on that soon – their book and adaptation, respectively, is in the higher echelon of 'mourning' dramas. The two plots – firstly Joe's new found responsibility to Artie then to his other son Harry, both under different circumstances – mould together seamlessly and never does it appear like they went for too much. Even the small subplots, which can so often be unnecessary, are natural and help boost the already exceptional story.

There is an issue though: the major players can be aggravating on occasion. Joe, a supposedly intelligent person, makes some parental decisions which – grieving a lost one or not – come off as just plain stupid and dangerous; mother-in-law Barbara needlessly spits out some manipulative dialogue; young Artie, possibly due to no fault of his own, at times behaves like a spoilt brat; and every now and then Harry is too whiny, even for a teenager. But hey, don't all family members have their faults? Unfortunately some of these are heightened after a life-changing event.

Greig Fraser's astounding cinematography must be given a mention. The rural South Australian setting is nothing short of breathtaking as Fraser's light green and orange palette gives the location warmth and calmness. The SA government would be well served using some of Boys material, the festival state's tourism would skyrocket. Complimenting the visuals is Hal Lindes terrific acoustic score, his music captures the mood perfectly for the opposing upbeat and pensive moments.

Overall director Scott Hicks has delivered a worthy picture about mourning, adapting and moving on. Would have been excellent if it weren't for the characters intermittently grating on your nerves.

3.5 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)

In The Boys Are Back, a film based on the memoir by Simon Carr of the British newspaper the Independent, is about a character named Joe, a sportswriter who has a five year old boy living with his mother in southern Australia. Joe is away from home often and mostly sees the boy, Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) on holidays or the few times he can get away. He loves his wife (Laura Fraser) and kid a great deal, and his life, as they say in the movies, is turned upside down by his wife's passing from cancer. Suddenly he finds himself with Artie 24/7, a boy who doesn't grasp what has happened fully with his mother's death (Artie, rambunctious but not annoying, asks Joe at one point if he can die so he can be with his mother again). On top of this for Joe is his teenaged son Harry, (MacKay) from a previous marriage, who comes to visit and adds another to his juggling of being a single-father-widower and top sports writer.

There's other things that sort of 'happen' to Joe as well in the film, such as a friendship (but not quite romance, thank goodness for us hoping for a lack of contrivance) with a single mom (Emma Booth). And it happen in a fairly realistic context of sudden grief that Joe has while taking care of his small boy, which he's never had to really take charge of before (we get the sense he left most of the child rearing with both of his sons to their respective mothers),and as a easy-going but firm parent has a philosophy of "just say yes", meaning anything goes, except when he says so.

His source material is a memoir by Simon Carr, which was more just a collection of musings and thoughts and little anecdotes as a single father as opposed to a coherent narrative. But what unfolds is just simply this story, more of a character study, about parenthood and the nature of a father-son bond that mostly the director Scott Hicks takes without too much sentimentality. He and his screenwriter accomplish at best something we don't see too often in movies: a sympathetic man, a father in a tough situation, and a little boy who seems simple enough but has his own complexities and nuances (McAnulty is great at getting the exuberance and frustration of a six year old, particularly one without a mother, and is never less than genuine). And then when Harry is thrown into the mix then the complex relationship builds as it becomes a father-son-brother story, with scenes that reveal how little of a bond there really is between Joe and Harry, and how they both know it needs to change now or never.

Another thing one must commend upon is Clive Owen, who is perhaps the paramount reason to see the film. It's a minor revelation after years of awesome action films (Shoot em Up) and thrillers (Duplicity) to see the guy get so much in touch with a torn and frayed character like Joe. For one thing, we see him cry, but its only in two crucial scenes, one of them while on a telephone with Harry as he greatly holds back tears when asked if anything is wrong, then later on in the other scene having his sob in the middle of a grassy field. It sounds like a character that could lead to some cliché- a tough no-nonsense sometimes-drinker sportswriter who has to put up with two kids- but Owen makes Joe fascinating to watch at every turn. Especially since, frankly, it's also equally impossible along with the crying to picture Owen acting so well off of McAnulty, who has had relatively little experience. Watching the two of them together go back and forth, and then later on as well with Owen and MacKay, is the heart of the picture.

The film is crafted with a lack of cynicism, with an eye for the way family works in times of trouble, and as well for luscious vistas from down under in Hicks' own home areas of south Australia. But there are a few things that keep The Boys Are Back from being a must see. There is a guitar score by Hal Lindes that pops up with an irritating precision, much akin to something like Brokeback Mountain, where we're made to suddenly feel something be it in a montage or a simple cut-away, and it becomes old-hat pretty quickly as the only significant orchestration. Also, a plot device that should work more but doesn't: Joe's wife appears several times in the film as a sort of ghost or just presence of comfort to give some advice or listen to Joe's own fears, and its just hokey, especially when we're told that it's not only Joe but his mother-in-law seeing her daughter, and at the end giving Joe a piece of encouragement regarding a convertible that had me roll my eyes. It's a shame, since everything else around those flaws make up some of the finest non-sentimental familial-drama scenes I've seen this year. 7.5/10