This Boy's Life (1993)

Release date: 1993-04-23
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Production Co: Knickerbocker Films, Warner Bros.
Genre: Drama, Biography
Rating: 7.3/10
Length: 1h 55min

Storyline

In 1957, a son and mother flee the East and an abusive boyfriend to find a new life, and end up in Seattle, where the mother meets a polite garage mechanic. The boy continually gets into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. The mom marries the mechanic, but they soon find out that he's an abusive and unreasoning alcoholic, and they struggle to maintain hope in an impossible situation as the boy grows up with plans to escape the small town by any means possible. Based on a true story by Tobias Wolff.

Plot Keywords

marital abuse, anal rape, pearl, compassion, domestic violence, homosexual, melancholy, reflection, teenage boy, dysfunctional family, anal sex, brutality, family relationships, coming of age, gay slur, marriage, loveless marriage, usa, based on book, based on true story

Short Review

The beauty of This Boy's Life is in the details: this meticulously observed story gets the look of the late '50s down pat and, more important, captures the dissonance between the era's ideals of nuclear-family life and painfully deracinated reality.