Boy (IV) (2014) User Reviews

Weak ending keeps this from being a decent movie

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 28 January 2018]

"Boy" (a very simple title for a complicated subject) is a Danish Danish-language short film from 2014, so this one will have its 5th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Lucas Helth Postma and this was his first and until pretty recently only filmmaking credit. The lead actress is Laura Emilie Hancock and she did a pretty job here during these 16 minutes I'd say. Same goes for the mother and I believe the acting here was among the film's biggest strengths, maybe the number one even. The story and plot were okay overall I guess, nothing incredibly new or smart or extraordinary, but a fine presentation with one teenage girl's struggles to accept her gender and things escalate a bit during a meal with visitors, but not as much as you might think when reading the plot summarty here on imdb. The one crucial thing is the ending though and this was really a negative deal breaker. There's no way the mother from one moment to the next would accept her daughter's ideas about herself anf the tie switching scene felt incredibly fake and pretentious to me. This was the only moment during this movie when I definitely had the feeling like I was watching actors and no real people and I would not even blame the cast here, but it's all the writer's fault. Shame for until then it was a pretty good work really, but with that ending I just cannot give it a positive recommendation or thumbs-up. Watch something else instead.