Taika Waititi’s Boy was the highest-grossing New Zealand film at the local box office until his hit third feature, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, overtook it in 2016. Sadly, when it was first released, this hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age tale never made it to our shores. But now UK audiences have a rare chance to watch the underseen work of one of film’s most offbeat directors.
Boy is about heroes, magic and Michael Jackson. Eleven-year-old Boy (Rolleston) has two heroes, and the King of Pop is one of them. The other is his absent dad, Alamein (Waititi). In his dreams, his father’s a hero; in reality, he’s a bumbling crook doing time in prison. When Alamein returns after seven years away, Boy has to learn to get along without the dad he had been hoping for.
