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‘The New Boy’ Review: Cate Blanchett Drama Delivers an Unsettling Blend of Religion and Magic

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thewrap.com

For about half an hour or so, Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy” could almost fool you into thinking that it’ll be a gentle, evocative and beautifully atmospheric movie about a small group of people who mean well.

But then things change, and an understated film that might have quietly dealt with Australia’s original sin – the decades-long removal of indigenous children from their parents – turns complex, spiritual and surpassingly unsettling, a mixture of religion and magic that doesn’t really trust in either.It’s still beautifully composed, but it cuts that beauty with some thorny ideas and puzzling turns; it starts out beguiling, but it may end up getting under your skin.Best known for “Samson and Delilah,” which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, Warwick has largely been working in television since then, with the notable exception of 2017’s “Sweet Country,” which looked at the conflict between white settlers and Aboriginal people. “The New Boy” brings him back to the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, where “Samson and Delilah” also screened — but this time he brought along Cate Blanchett, a fan turned collaborator who plays a nun and also served as a producer on the film.Set in an Australian frontier of desert and dry grass, it brings sometime cinematographer Thornton’s remarkable eye to the story of a young Aboriginal boy who’s brought to an out-of-the-way home for “lost boys” run by a pair of nuns and a kindly handyman/farmer.

The setup is, of course, disquieting, given Australia’s decades-long history of removing indigenous children from their families to “assimilate” them into white society.

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