The New Boy (2023)

The New Boy is the kind of drama that feels less like a story you’re told and more like a spell you’re invited to sit inside—an outback parable where faith, power, and identity collide in images that linger like prayer. Warwick Thornton frames the remote mission with stark, painterly beauty, letting candlelit interiors and wide, unforgiving landscapes speak as loudly as the dialogue, while Cate Blanchett brings a fierce, complicated tenderness to Sister Eileen’s certainty. At the film’s quiet center is Aswan Reid, whose magnetic presence makes the boy’s wordless wonder and unease feel utterly human, even when the movie brushes up against the mystical. It’s a slow, contemplative watch that won’t suit viewers craving plot-heavy momentum, but if you’re open to cinema that wrestles with spirituality and colonial history through mood, ritual, and haunting visual storytelling, it’s absolutely worth your time.

Warwick Thornton is clearly aiming for a haunting, spiritual parable about faith, colonisation, and what gets erased in the name of “saving” someone, and the atmosphere is often striking enough to make you lean in. The problem is it leans so hard into mood and symbolism that the storytelling can feel slippery—scenes play more like impressions than clear turning points, and the big ideas stay suggestive rather than fully unpacked. If you’re coming for a grounded drama with crisp character motivations or a narrative that explains itself, this may test your patience, even with Cate Blanchett’s committed work anchoring the chaos. But if you’re open to an ambiguous, visually led film that wants you to sit with discomfort and unanswered questions, it has real power in its quiet, unsettling moments.