It seems that I’ve been screening of lot of films about disaffected—and even sociopathic—youth: Alpha Dog, Self-Medicated, Charlie Bartlett, The Wackness, Ben X, Reprise.  While Boy A may not be the best-made film of the bunch—that prize would go to Alpha Dog or Reprise, probably—I may have enjoyed this one the most.

This time out the troubled protagonist is an Irish lad with a history… a history that is revealed bit by bit through flashbacks as the film progresses. “Jack” is just being released from a reformatory, where he’s been incarcerated since he was convicted of murder as a boy.  He was never very well socialized in the first place (hence, his criminal tendency) and now he’s a bit of a 26-year-old blank slate, fresh for the world’s picking-on.  His social worker/therapist Terry tries to prepare him for “reality”—and the bitterness of those who still can’t bring themselves to forget about “Boy A,” as he was known to the court system.  Terry finds Jack a job, supplies him with his new identity and a backstory, and attempts to protect and guide him while he finds his bearings in society.

Jack’s new job as a delivery man puts him in contact with the sort of seeming layabouts who would appear to a bad fit for a young man with a troubled past. Jack is soon experimenting with alcohol, with drugs… and with Michelle, the firm’s records-keeper.

As Jack becomes more involved with real people in the real world, the more acutely aware he becomes that he must keep those people at arm’s length. As Terry tells him, he can’t afford to tell the truth about his past—and there’s nothing to tell, really, because Eric of the tabloids doesn’t exist anymore; there’s only Jack.  And Jack hasn’t done anything wrong.  In fact, Jack is pretty popular, and reveals himself to be something of a hero.

Terry, meanwhile, has got his own problems.  His own disaffected son has come home to roost after a failed attempt at college and a falling out with his mother—and Terry just doesn’t understand how he could have such brilliant success with “Jack” while being such a failure at home.  Frankly, Terry’s son doesn’t quite get that, either, and he becomes a supporting player in the classic sense: one on whom the plot turns.

To be sure, Boy A treads a lot of familiar ground while it explores the breadth of the  “leopards can’t change their spots” vs. “clothes make the man” spectrum.  We’ve seen loads and loads of bullying tales, of stories about abused children, of well-meaning examinations of the psyches of criminals, petty and otherwise.  So why did this tragic saga of disaffected youth and its consequences work so well for me?

Top of the list is Andrew Garfield’s performance as Jack.  Earlier this year, the young actor was so forgettable as the central protagonist in Robert Redford’s Lion’s for Lambs that it’s hard to believe this is the same guy.  Here he’s so physically and charismatically reminiscent of Anthony Perkins—playing the type of open-mouthed lostness that Perkins so perfected—that I have to conclude that Garfield is extraordinarily gifted.  He’s either a truly dynamic actor or a genius mimic, getting as much mileage out of silence and body language as he does out of dialogue.  I literally couldn’t take my eyes off of him while he was on screen.

The film’s flashback structure also works rather well, as tired a device as it has become.  It’s easy to take the episodic Fried Green Tomatoes “…now, where was I?” approach, but Mark O’Rowe’s screenplay and John Crowley’s direction seamlessly interleave the scenes from Jack’s past in a fashion that reminds me of Waterland, one of the best films of the flashback genre. They foreshadow, but they don’t reveal.

Supporting performances are also noteworthy.  It’s always fun seeing Peter Mullan take on a new role (here playing Terry, as far removed as conceivable from his most recent appearance as Syd in Children of Men), and Katie Lyons is a refreshing female presence as Jack’s love interest, Michelle.  Not often are we treated to a portrayal of sensual femininity that isn’t dependent on Madison Avenue looks, or scenes of lovemaking that actually feel essential to the story.

I may be conjuring memories of my own childhood (which are by this time too steeped in mythos to be reliable), but I also found Taylor Doherty as the young Eric’s psychotic friend Philip—as well as Alfie Owen as Eric—to be wholly believable.  (In fact, I was so sold on Doherty’s performance that I swore I must have seen him in some other movie; yet IMDb tells me that’s just not possible.)  I hate to think what would have become of me had I, like Eric, run across a friend like Philip when I was ten.  Troubled kids very easily fall into bad company.

For most audiences, though, I suspect the best thing about Boy A will be that it doesn’t come up with any easy answers—that is, if open-ended scenarios are your cup of tea.  It seriously addresses issues related to retribution, revenge, responsibility, regeneration, and free will, and yet the conclusion is sufficiently vague that you might not agree with the filmmakers that this is a tragedy.  I found it neither naïve nor pessimistic.

How much one buys into Jack’s tale in the early going, though, will likely depend on how much stock you put in the power of socially-driven reform or spiritual regeneration—or how willing you are to believe that Eric might actually have been innocent.  If you believe that convicted killers are best left locked away for good regardless of remorse or repentance, and that films which explore the topic are simply irresponsible, you will have little patience for Boy A and his plight—or for this story.

Boy A is rated R for “language, sexuality, some disturbing content and brief drug use.”  This is gritty stuff, to be sure.  But please don’t mistake this kind of R-rated material with torture porn masquerading as teen horror films, Tarantino flicks, or Good Luck Chuck.  Sometimes being a mature audience member is a worthwhile thing.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a press screening of Boy A.