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What can you say about a domestic drama in which tough-guy Clive Owen spends much of the first act sobbing?
I've run into a few women in the office who say they'd like to see that -- as if, with that act of sensitivity, Owen thus completes the circle and becomes their perfect man.
Whatever, it seems a kind of odd thing to wrap one's head around from a guy who came this close to being James Bond.
But I suppose it's preferable to the laughtrack that, in other hands, might have been applied to this tale of a widower who sets up house with his two sons. Heads or tails, soap opera or sitcom.
The Boys Are Back manages to be both at different intervals.
Taken from the book by journalist Simon Carr, about the experience of piecing together a household with his two boys after the cancer death of his wife, The Boys Are Back indeed veers toward the sitcom-y at times -- particularly in its portrayal of dad's "free-range" theories of child-raising.
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After the lachrimose beginning, Australian sportswriter Joe Warr (Owen) dries his tears, puts down his Scotch bottle, and sets about getting to know his boys -- Artie (Nicholas McNulty) the young one at home who has become a stranger, and Harry (George McKay), the teenager he'd left behind with his ex-wife in Britain.
Unfortunately, neither one is a good candidate for "free-range" raising. Artie (portrayed with intense verisimilitude by McNulty) is clearly conflicted and hyperactive, and prone to acting out. Harry is just plain resentful over being abandoned by his dad all those years earlier.
Directed by Scott Hicks, who knows his way around feelings (Shine, Hearts In Atlantis, Snow Falling On Cedars), the movie bounces various conflicts around like emotional pinballs, softening it with boys-will-be-boys household antics, an enabling almost-girlfriend and single mom named Laura (Emma Booth) -- not to mention gimmicky sporadic visits from the ghost of Joe's dead wife Katy (Laura Fraser), who gently tells him what he's doing wrong (everything, as it turns out).
The young actors are actually the best part of the movie, McNulty especially, but also McKay, whose Harry is surly without being utterly obnoxious.
Their chemistry is interesting, Artie instantly adoring his new older brother, while Harry struggles with his "outsider" status both in his new family and his new country.
Still, the climax, which involves an antic and logistically hard-to-swallow dereliction of duty by Joe on the homefront and workfront simultaneously (no small feat) does seem contrived.
There's just too much going on emotionally (we haven't even mentioned all the static Joe gets from his in-laws) for the movie to find its focus, and the inevitably happy ending doesn't do much for the credibility of everything that led up to it.
On the other hand, if, like Clive Owen, all you're looking for is a good cry, The Boys Are Back just might be the ticket.
(This film is rated PG)