This Boy's Life

The film This Boy's Life (1993) is set in the 1950s and does a good job of recreating that era. The look is right, but the characters are also right, with attitudes about certain subjects showing that they come from a different time than we do today. For those of us who recall that era, the film has a certain nostalgic value, though it also should make us think that we have done well to get away from some of the past we remember. One of the notable changes is the way women are treated and the way families are viewed as protected from all criticism, though we know today that women are still mistreated and that there are many things about the family that can be destructive. The young man in this film, Toby, may emerge from his experience a stronger person, but this does not mean society should ignore the plight of young people in the same situation.

Toby and his mother start in the East and head for the West so she can escape an abusive boyfriend and find a new life. Caroline and Toby are free spirits, and their decision to travel across the country is a major one. They travel to Salt Lake City, Seattle, and eventually Concrete, Washington. They move to the Pacific Northwest in search of a better life. How the two decide to go to Seattle shows how free they are of entanglements and how much they want only to escape--they were going to go to Phoenix, but they change direction when the Phoenix bus is late.

When they settle in Seattle, the mother becomes involved

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rouble at school, hangs out with the wrong crowd, spends too much time on the street, and starts to smoke and drink along with the others. Caroline begins to see how much her son needs a man, a father figure, and so she tries to help by sending Toby to live with Dwight for a time. This is a mistake on her part, though her intentions were good. In part, it is a mistake because she has not yet seen the real nature of this man, but it would be a mistake in any case because what Toby needs is not simply a father but a father and mother. He has been lost since his mother separated from his father. In truth, the father is just as abusive a man as Dwight, which is why the mother left him in the first place. She compounds her mistake with Dwight by marrying him a few months later. It is after this that she learns how abusive he can be, and once more she finds herself in the same sort of relationship she fled months before. Toby, of course, learns how overbearing Dwight can be before his mother does, though any action he might take would be regarded as more teenage rebellion. As the film progresses, we can see that Dwight is something of a rebellious teenager himself. He is much older, of course, but his behavior has been arres

Category: Film - T