The Boys Are Back (PG-13, 2009)

It’s difficult to portray the ravages of grief on screen. But director Scott Hicks, who won an Academy Award for Shine, accomplishes it effectively in THE BOYS ARE BACK. Inspired by writer Simon Carr’s memoir, the movie vividly renders death’s messy aftermath -- the way mourning upends just when you think you’ve righted yourself. Owen and the actors who play his kids are authentic -- McAnulty and MacKay achingly so -- which saves the film from outright treacle (for a movie about grief, it has some great laughs). Their reactions seem to spring from genuine feeling, not “acting.” And the movie's landscape -- glorious, golden, gorgeously filmed Adelaide, Australia -- is a stirring counterpoint to the family's lamentable state of affairs. It’s a reminder that life simultaneously ends and continues.

A few objections: After his wife’s death, Joe’s home and his parenting understandably fall into neglect (scenes of Joe driving with Artie on his lap will surely rile up vigilant moms and dads). But both outcomes feel predictable, somehow, as do his developing interest in a single mother and his one-on-one conversations with his (dead) wife. The film is powerfully lean, but it could’ve been made ever so slightly leaner.