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This Boy's Life

He looked like the ideal husband. He seemed like the perfect father. That's just what they needed. But that's not what they got.

1993 · 1h 55m · R Drama
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones

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Overview

When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
76%
Tomatometer
Rotten

Something more subtle is going on in Wolff's book, a confrontation with a richer, quirkier past and his emerging self that the movie too often brushes aside.

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
Fresh

The leads work overtime to make their characters and their relationships pungent, believable, and moving.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Rotten

Nicely acted but excessively bland.

Todd McCarthy, Variety
Fresh

It's a rites-of-passage drama with the kind of period small-town setting that the director is making his own.

Wally Hammond, Time Out
Rotten

This Boy's Life is so steeped in period detail (music, cars, television shows, hair styles) that Toby and Caroline's sad, bumbling search for freedom seems secondary, almost impolite to the decor.

Vincent Canby, New York Times

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