The best films create new languages, teaching audiences how to watch them and translate them for meaning. The majority of films fail when there are no attempts to build one, copy-and-pasting elements to create jumbled and confused pieces lacking any hint of originality, arriving as utterly meaningless. Yet every so often, a film comes along that fails in a very different, far more intriguing way. “The New Boy” (2023), the latest feature from Warwick Thornton, which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year, is one of these. It certainly makes an attempt, and a valiant one at that, to create meaning through a visual form of storytelling but gets so lost in itself that it becomes incomprehensible for audiences.
Set against the sweltering backdrop of rural Australia, Aswan Reid is the eponymous New Boy, a dark-skinned Aboriginal orphan who, during the Second World War, is brought to a Christian monastery run by the warmly maternal yet secretive Sister Eileen, played by Cate Blanchett. Here, the new boy is torn between his indigenous heritage and newfound values of Christianity. Reid has to carry the weight of this relatively plotless exercise in thematic exploration. Whilst he possesses a surprisingly commanding screen presence, the character’s silence, as someone unable to interpret English, doesn’t aid our ability to understand the ethereal imagery he is surrounded by.
Presenting this ambiguous, allegorically loaded imagery is where the film evidently feels most at home. The use of lighting is commendable, and Warwick Thornton, who served as his own cinematographer, does display a strong and cohesive aesthetic vision. However, a lot of it, whilst beautiful on the surface, doesn’t appear to be building to any grander idea, and the film generally feels very aimless. Slice-of-life dramas like this depict a transformational moment in an individual’s life. While often slow-paced and meticulous in establishing the setting, it still needs to build towards something which “The New Boy” doesn’t. The film never has any stakes or conflict or anything to make you become invested in this boy’s journey, and it becomes very hard to connect with the movie on any emotional level as a result.
Vague musings about spirituality and colonization are interwoven nicely. Still, despite the cerebral nature of the film, I never felt any messages or profundity washing over me in the way I expected or Thornton intended. Many elements of this expansive tapestry also feel somewhat underexplored. The monastery was originally run by a priest, but for an initially unspecified reason, Cate Blanchett’s Sister character Eileen is in charge. Blanchett delivers a typically solid performance, although nothing outside her, albeit very broad, comfort zone.
The film never appears interested in following this thread, and it, in addition to all the supporting characters around the New Boy, feels like they become almost lost in what the film is trying to do. Arguably, this is due to the film’s nebulous state between a narrative feature and a full-blown experimental one. It isn’t so experimental where there is no narrative. Many films with experimental narratives work tremendously well, but with the plot so low on the film’s priority list, it also isn’t experimental enough to become poetic.
As of yet, I have failed to mention some of the most admirable qualities of the film. Firstly, the score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis fulfills the assignment perfectly, with not a note feeling overbearing or out of place. It is almost powerful enough to help guide the audience’s understanding of certain visual and narrative choices. However, I wouldn’t go quite so far as to suggest it negates any of the obvious problems in these areas. Additionally, it is a film that is able to create a strong sense of place, emphasizing small details in this world to, in turn, create a reality that feels wholly lived in and decently transportative.
In conclusion, “The New Boy” very much falls under a category of films that I think many will respect rather than enjoy. It feels complete as a piece of work but far too cryptic for its own good at times. The passion from Thornton is undeniably evident, and the film is visually striking. For many, this might be enough to connect with what’s going on in this dense text. But it’s hard not to feel cold towards it when it often feels meandering between points in service of conclusions that are too vague and inaccessible to be meaningful.
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