The Boys Are Back (2009)

From NetFlix:

Following the sudden death of his wife, Australian sportswriter Joe Warr (Clive Owen) struggles to cope with his grief and comfort his young son (Nicholas McAnulty). Being a single father gets even trickier when Joe’s rebellious teenage son from a previous marriage (George MacKay) moves in. Director Scott Hicks helms this touching — and often hilarious — tale of a family in flux, based on a memoir by Simon Carr.

In this film Clive Owen is as I have never seen him. Gone (well, almost) is the grinning bad boy. Instead he plays well a caring father left to his own uncertain devices. Both sons do an amazing job of acting. The younger gets it right as a little boy. The older teenager gets it right as an adolescent who wonders if his father even loves him. In some ways it is a very ordinary film. But for me the underlying truth is that kids suffer from divorce no matter what our permissive experts tell us.

And is Australia really that beautiful ?

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