Boy on AllMovie

Taika Waititi, director of the romantic comedy Eagle Vs. Shark, returns with this offbeat coming-of-age story adapted from his 2003 short subject Two Cars, One Night. It's 1984, and Boy (James Rolleston) is a Maori 11-year-old growing up in a community off the coast of New Zealand. While his village feels a bit cut off from the rest of the world, contemporary pop culture still makes itself known here, and he and his pals are all enthralled with Michael Jackson and have nicknames drawn from popular TV shows. Boy and his younger brother Rocky (Te Aho Eketone-Whitu) -- who likes to believe he has superpowers -- are being raised by their grandmother after their mother died and their father abandoned the family. He likes to believe that his father is someone remarkable and has spun impressive fantasies about his adventures, but he has to adjust his expectations when Alamein (Taika Waititi) actually shows up, and he learns dad spent several years in prison on charges of armed robbery. Alamein has come back to his hometown to recover some money he hid after one of his rare successful robberies, but both he and Boy are in for a surprise once they set out to find it. Boy was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.