Clive Owen & Nicholas McAnulty

A widowed dad doesn't quite come to grips with his shortcomings as a parent in "The Boys Are Back."

This mournful melodrama serves up Clive Owen as a "free range" parent in a movie that argues that no matter how selfish or irresponsible, Dad is still the right one to raise his son.

Owen plays Joe Warr, a British expat who is now a star sports columnist in Australia.

But his well-heeled life of tennis tournaments and swim meets is upended when his beloved wife (Laura Fraser) becomes sick and dies. Dad, who cared for Mom during her final months, now must juggle a return to work with a 6-year-old (Nicholas McAnulty) who doesn't grasp Mom's death. Dad ponders the "map of a child's mind."

His solution? Put "Just say yes" in magnet letters on the fridge and live by that.

Joe serves pizza for every meal, doesn't clean house, drives down the beach with the kid riding on the hood of his Range Rover and shocks relatives with his laissez-faire approach to parenting.

The consequences of that don't fully manifest themselves until his son from an earlier marriage (George MacKay) shows up, an English teen who has plainly suffered for dad's selfishness.

Much has been changed from Simon Carr's memoir for this film, starting with the name "Simon Carr" and the location (New Zealand).

It's a movie of mixed messages as Joe's hears what he wants to hear from his ghostly chats with his late wife -- "We aren't meant to do these things (child-rearing) by ourselves." There's his permission to pursue the fetching young single mom at school (Emma Booth), whom he hits up for baby-sitting.

Owen, not chasing Julia Roberts or anyone else for a change, is pleasant enough making this 100-minute argument for unconventional parenting. But director Scott Hicks ("Shine") doesn't find much emotion here once Mom is dead.

The conflict with the mother-in-law, who wants to raise the boy properly, is muted.

Joe's self-indulgence is mostly just tolerated.

As sadly as this begins, you expect more tears, more of a moral to the story than "The Boys Are Back" delivers.

Watch it the way you'd watch "Super Nanny" -- as in, "I may not be the best parent, but at least I'm not him."

 

"The Boys Are Back" Movie Trailer

The Boys are Back is the new movie from Scott Hicks, the director of Shine. The Boys are Back stars Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Clive Owen as a witty, wisecracking, action-oriented sportswriter who, in the wake of his wifes tragic death, finds himself in a sudden, stultifying state of single parenthood. United by unspoken love, conflicted by fierce feelings and in search of a road forward, the three multi-generational boys of the Warr household, father and sons alike, must each find their own way, however tenuous, to grow up. Their story is not just about the transforming power of a family crisis -- but the unavoidable grace of everyday life and love that gets them through.

 

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MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some sexual language and thematic elements).

Running time: 1:42.

Starring: Clive Owen (Joe Warr); Nicholas McAnulty (Artie); George MacKay (Harry).

Directed by Scott Hicks; written by Allan Cubitt; produced by Greg Brenman and Tim White. A Miramax release.

 

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