Roddy Doyle's Live Action Short Film "New Boy"

In honor of the Academy Awards ceremony this weekend, which I will be watching in Santa Monica with a host of industry-type people and assiduously casting my ballot for the winners, I offer this literary focus.

You've likely heard about the most famous short story adaption of the year, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." As far as other academy award nominees, both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader" were both inspired by novels.

But these full-length adaptations shouldn't overshadow the short films nominated, among them Roddy Doyle's short story "New Boy," from his latest collection The Deportees (which I reviewed for The Short Review). "New Boy" is up for Best Live Action Short Film, along with "The Pig" and "Manon on the Asphalt."

--Watch full eleven-minute "New Boy" film online.

In a transfer of my focus from brevity in literature to brevity in film, I've watched a few collections of Academy Award nominated short films from the last few years, and they were uniformly terrible (if you want good, artful short films, you'd be much better off netflixing or buying McSweeney's Wholphin). So that didn't give me much hope.

Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed very much by the story of "New Boy" either. It's about a black boy that has to fight to gain acceptance in a very white classroom in Ireland. It's not bad, it's just not very daring. The one factor in its favor is that it does seem very cinematic, the type of story relying mostly on action and dialogue, which was relatively easy to adapt to the screen. Here's an excerpt from the opening of the short story:

He sits.
He sits in the classroom. It is his first day.
He is late.
He is five years late.
And that is very late, he thinks.
He is nine. The other boys and girls have been like this, together, since they were four. But he is new.

The film hews pretty close to the short story, including the chronology, dialogue and flashbacks, but strangely censors the violence, both the massacre in Africa and the bloody battle between the schoolboys in Ireland. This is probably a tonal decision, in order to not overweight a ten minute film with carnage it can't hope to handle, but the violence is really what gives the story its weight -- otherwise, the impact becomes saccharine and sentimental. So the film ends up feeling like neutered version of the story, which wasn't groundbreaking to begin with.

But will it win?

The Live Action Short Film is one of those smaller categories that is difficult to forecast, mainly because the voters are drawn from a much smaller pool (I mean, all the academy voters will vote for Best Picture, so you can gumshoe about and do a better representative poll). But it does have a solid literary pedigree behind it, which helps, and it's also foreign, which is where the category seems to be leaning. I'll probably go for it, because I'm just a pragmatic guy -- I want to win the pool, not vote my heart.

Comments

[James Roland]

I made it through half of this flick before I turned it off. It's dull, pointless, and exists only on the merit of its subject matter. It's a form of racism, to completely ignore the rules of good storytelling (particularly visual storytelling) and depend on a poor misjudged black boy to pull at heart strings. Have the courage to make him a real character! Pathetic and self aware and such a cliched choice for an Academy nomination.

[kbeanz]

I saw all five of the nominated films. I disagree that this film needed more violence. This one, among the others, comes up feeling sweet, and the violence as depicted gives it just enough weight to take it dead seriously. If it weren't for the off-screen gunshot, this film wouldn't stand a chance against the others.

The gravity of "On The Line" and "Toyland" would blow "New Boy" out of the water if it tried to be heavier. The depiction of violence on screen doesn't make a film more serious, it just makes it bloodier. I felt the off-screen gunshot said everything we needed to know, and perhaps more. It was the kind of jolt you feel in your body when waking up from a nightmare. I didn't need to see any more to feel the weight of the situation. And a bloodier schoolyard would make the final "redemption" scene unbelievable.

If I were picking a winner based on weighty subject matter, I would pick "On The Line" because of how personal the conflict was. I would argue that it's more mentally agonizing to suffer for a personal choice you've made, rather than to suffer for things you have no control over. I don't think "New Boy" would have had a chance of winning if it tried to go for overwhelming social consciousness. It needed a mix of sweet and grave, and in that I think it succeeded.

[BookFox]

James:

"Pathetic and self aware and such a cliched choice"

I'm sure you could say this about a number of the nominated films. But as I said, you want solid short films, go Wholphin, not the Academy.

Kbeanz:

As far as the violence, I think in the post above I recognized why the filmmakers didn't include more. But I was pointing out that the original source material, the short story by Roddy Doyle, was much more violent. In the short story, it worked better.

And you say sweet, I say saccharine. Just a step away on the spectrum of opinion.

[maggie]

great blog! i've been looking forward to reading The Reader. i haven't seen the film yet, either. i did read Revolutionary Road, which, even for someone who loves Joyce Carol Oates and Tolstoy, was depressing. Such emptiness.

[BookFox]

Thanks maggie. I totally agree about Revolutionary Road. Depressing, especially for someone living in suburbia. But more importantly, I feel like that topics been covered so many times.

As far as the short fiction category, Toyland, the german film set during the holocaust, won.

Sorry, New Boy.

[JJ]

What's up johnfox?

Don't know if you came across in your viewings, but Our Time is Up starring Kevin Pollack is my favorite oscar-nominated short film of all time. It's from 2006. A nice example of a great, brief, storytelling.

Check it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vso9iPIpeu8

[billy]

I haven't watched these short movies, never considered them something special, but after this article, I'd perhaps watch some.