BOY – Imagination vs. Reality

 I don’t remember you! You weren’t there! You weren’t there when he was born! You weren’t there when she died! Where were you?

Boy is a touching coming of age film that explores the ideas of a child’s imagination and the harsh reality he has to accept. We’re introduced to Boy, a New Zealand youth in the 80s. In the first scene he explains his world to us. He lives on a farm with his grandmother, brother and several cousins. He has day to day responsibilities, a crush, he idolizes Michael Jackson and constructs heroic stories about his father’s absence, hoping to see him return. His younger brother, Rocky, believes he has powers as he uses his imagination and is set on a journey to understand his mother’s death at childbirth, which he caused. The movie exists in the realms of reality and the imagination of two boys who come from a sad background. And this is what writer/director Taika Waititi does masterfully. Adding humor and wonder in what is rather a sad tale.

Things get a lot more interesting when the estranged father Alamein, played by Taika Waititi, returns. Boy finally meets his father again and in his fantastical world he sees him as a hero. But in reality Alamein is irresponsible and like Boy and Rocky, he uses his imagination to escape the harsh reality he is in, in other to make himself more respectful. Alamein is the opposite of everything Boy imagined him to be. He left his family in the darkest of times and came back only for his own needs. He constantly makes up stories about his greatness and is uncomfortable with his own son calling him “dad”, instead telling Boy to call him “Shogun”. Boy no matter what, still sees him as the man in his fantastical world, until the near end where Boy realizes his father is not what he thought he was. Reality finally breaks his imagination and Boy lashes out against his father, angry for leaving and not even being present at Rocky’s birth and his mother’s death. In a way, Alamein becomes a bridge for Boy’s journey from childhood into adulthood. 

Boy ends on a hopeful and optimistic note. This is a very emotional and sad yet funny and optimistic coming of age film. It’s a story of a child’s imagination and the harsh reality outside it. It’s a story of childhood and adulthood.