Patriarchy

I’d been waiting with bated breath to see Clive Owen’s buzzed-about tender turn in The Boys Are Back, and I’m thrilled to say the actor more than earns his shot at a Best Actor nomination at next year’s Oscars.

Owen’s usually all brawn on the big screen – hey, Sin City and Shoot ’Em Up! Or he’s the most brute of cads – here’s looking at you, Closer.

Even at his smoothest, like in last spring’s Duplicity, there’s a hint of devil-may-carelessness that doesn’t inspire more than mere fascination, you know what I mean. This film debunks that notion for Owen.

His brand of bad boy, of rogue, may not scare his audience, but I would wager it’s never made anyone want to…get him to commit to them. It’s like, up until now his characters have been these misbehaved dogs: loyal, but unpredictable. That’s all changing with The Boys Are Back. Owen’s showing us that in his care, everything will sort itself out.

Only once before, in Derailed, had he been given the chance to play someone’s dad, but that role was underwritten and didn’t showcase his paternal prowess.

By casting him in this based-on-a-true-story film (which, OK, the actor helped to executive produce), Scott Hicks (Shine) delivers a vastly different Owen than we’re used to seeing, one whose alpha maleness is toned down by grief.

And I likey. I likey a lot.

The actor plays Joe Warr, a top British sportswriter living in Australia, and, for the purpose of the story, a man quite ill-prepared to raise his two sons alone after the untimely and swift passing of his second wife.

After his wife’s death, Joe’s left to care for his son Arthur (Nicolas McAnulty). After a few weeks, his oldest son Harry (George MacKay), the one he left behind to be raised by his mother in England, heads Down Under for an extended stay. Without a roadmap for how to move on and forward with their lives, Joes decides it’s best to leave convention behind, and lead a life based on a mantra of just saying yes.

When things go awry, though, he’s forced to step up and behave like a parent, but he does so in a way that he doesn’t completely abandoning the joy shared in their new world.

Especially because just saying yes helped them become a family.

The Boys Are Back is by no means a perfect film – I sometimes could feel it trying hard to tug at my heartstrings.

But Owen is perfect in it, and that to me is reason enough to say yes to it.

My Rating ***

Photo: Miramax Films.