Boy, the kid not the movie, is Alamein, son of Alamein, a kid living below the poverty line with his grandmother, his little brother and a number of cousins. They mostly fend for themselves, and Grandma has no worry leaving them all on their own while she goes to town for weeks at a time. It's 1984 so the world is not as dangerous. Besides, he has his obsession with Michael Jackson and the fantastical musings of his absent father to keep him company. That is, until his father actually shows up.
Dad is played by Waititi himself in his familiar rambunctious, unhinged self which denotes some very apparent characteristics for Boy's dad -- while Boy idolizes him, seeing the absent man as a rebel and a wild card, we see him as a petulant man-child playing at being a criminal without any understanding of the consequences, nor wishing to deal with them when they eventually happen. Of course, he is charming in his own silly way, but soon even Boy sees through it. This is an incredible coming of age story, as boy learns his fantastical musings may not be so good once reality is interjected, which also applies to Michael Jackson as 2010 would have been deep in the time where people were questioning their devotion to the pop star.
I liked that Boy was through the visual lens of a young boy on the cusp of adolescence. The level of the story telling is from that untainted view point, leaving it entirely up to the viewer to interject their own opinions on what is going on. They are poor -- does it affect them; not at all. Adults are all weird, complicated and all have their own agendas. Sexual hurdles are there, but nobody understands them and everyone fakes that they do. Time is forever as long as you have something familiar to fill it with. Perhaps it is Waititi's own perspective on life, as he does play the manchild in real life, but it does him well, unlike his character in the movie.
The one gap in my Waititi viewing. I keep forgetting about its existence, even as I watched Eagle vs Shark again last week.
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