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When the official Sundance lineup was released a little while back and the trade papers began their annual crying about how depressing everything was I can only presume that they were ignoring Taiki Waititi's Boy. Because the latest from the director of Eagle Versus Shark is a full on charmer, a whimsical coming of age story that looks to occupy a sweet spot somewhere between Wes Anderson, Garth Jennings and Spike Jonze territory.
The first trailer has just arrived. Check it below.It's 1984, and Michael Jackson is king--even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy's father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version--an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters.
Eagle vs. Shark was the only film labeled as "quirky" that I found to have any real depth and value. Really well done stuff. This looks to be more of the same. Yay.
I never saw Eagle Versus Shark but if this is representative of his style I really need to look it up ...
It was somewhat unfairly lumped in with a lot of the "Napolean Dynamite" types. Certainly worth seeing.