THIS BOY'S LIFE
A film review by Lons Ponschock
Copyright 1995 Lons Ponschock
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones >From the life of Tobias Wolff Stars Leonardo DeCaprio, Robert Deniro, Ellen Barkin
We've all seen the countless interpretations of "John Boy Walton Leaving the Mountain to Go Away to a Better Life at the University", whether it was actually The Waltons, CROSSING THE BRIDGE or a myriad of other films about getting away from home. Some of these are sentimental like that old tv show where everyone is good and kind and the way God planned it. Others as in THIS BOY'S LIFE tell the story of what it is like to live isolated with a stepfather who could kill you.
I don't know how deeply this notion effects others: this primordial fear in a Freudian sense of death at the hands of someone much bigger than you when you are young. I think it effects us all... especially boys.
Tobias Wolff uses his real name in the telling of his life in Washington State with his mother and his stepfather and stepdad's children.
It is not an easy story to watch. And De Niro as Dwight the stepdad really makes you hate him. That's what the truly superb actor can do: to be so over the top-- to take the risks of looking foolish and also treacherous, vain, conniving, cruel and a thousand other of emotions and traits.
Leonard DiCaprio as young Tobias is the star of the picture though. And Ellen Barkin as his mother shows what it is like to be a free spirit caught in the 50's who settles down with Dwight to give her teen aged son a home.
So this is a good film. It is not a comfortable film... but it is a good film. What THIS BOY'S LIFE gave me was really only one scene in the picture: the scene where the boy will either live or die at the hands of the stepdad.
And the rage that that produces... the helplessness, bitterness and anger in the inability to defend yourself. Those images go very deep.
Melodramatic? I'll tell you a secret as I sometimes do here: I was never any good at distinguishing what middle class white people consider high drama as opposed to the low life monkey shines of people I actually knew or emotions I actually felt.
So when you see that signature file which closes these writings, think if that as well.
-- lon
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