TL;DR – I look at one boy’s life during truly unrelenting times.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

The Boy in the Woods Review Introduction –

Today, we explore a film that touches on one of the juxtapositions of humanity, our propensity for great evil, but also our profound ability to survive in the face of insurmountable odds. Add to this the fact that this is a real story written by the person who lived through it, and you get a profound setting for a film.

So, to set the scene, during the height of World War II, Poland had been occupied for about two years by the Nazis. It is a place of ghosts as Jewish towns and quarters across the country have been devastated, with few remaining. Maxwell Smart (Jett Klyne) and his family are among the few left, and as they were being rounded up for ‘relocation’, he manages to escape after his mother tells him to run. His aunt finds a place for him to hide out, a farm run by Jasko (Richard Armitage). It is a tough transition for Max, who had spent all his life in the city, but when you are hiding from the Nazis, you need to become someone else. Jasko teaches Maxwell how to survive in the wild, which soon becomes a necessity.  

Setting

You don’t have to do much to set the scene when it comes to Nazis and their actions during WW2, but seeing an officer rip a baby out of a mother’s hands and throw it into a truck with no care, like it was a bag of potatoes, does more heavy lifting than anything can. At the same time, a lot of the film is set in the woods, which brings its own peculiar charm of moss, mud, an obedient partridge, and so many conifers. They still make it feel like a worthy setting by making it Maxwell’s world. I also liked the detail in the early 20^th-century farmhouses and clothes. Every part of the film is there to help capture that period of time in all its beauty and harshness.   

Casting

I do have to give respect to Jett Klyne, who plays our lead. He captures someone at that age, someone pretending to be a little man but still a child, afraid of being alone, but also, that is a profoundly understandable emotion at any time, let alone then. There is an anger to his performance that shines through. Richard Armitage brings a quieter performance to a man who wants to help, but knows there are limits where his family is concerned. Christopher Heyerdahl makes a profoundly uncomfortable Nazi officer with that penetrating stare. The casual way he empties out his cigarette butt onto the floor of a wooden building, showing his absolute contempt for everyone in it, was unsettling to watch.  

Narrative

In some regards, it is hard to dissect a narrative of a film that is about one person’s specific experiences in the past. They are not just a film story to explore, but someone’s lived memories. This also means that there is not a whole lot of narrative to the film other than Max’s self-reflections, the struggles to stay alive, and the damage of forgetting what your family looks like. It is a complicated watch at times, because it is so human, even if you can kind of suspect where the story is going to go, because of history. So, I don’t feel like I can judge a story like this, but I can say is that it hits the emotions where it should.  

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend The Boy in the Woods? While this is a difficult watch at times, it is also a person’s story, one that should be shown because if cuts to the heart of humanity. Also, I don’t know, looking the world today, I feel some people should take some heed from history.

Have you watched The Boy in the Woods? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked The Boy in the Woods, we would recommend The Boy and the Heron to you because it also looks at how children process the horrors of war, but in a slightly more fantastical setting.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Boy in the Woods
Directed by – Rebecca Snow
Screenplay by – Rebecca Snow
Based on – The Boy in the Woods by Maxwell Smart
Music by – Julia Kent
Cinematography by – Adam Madrzyk
Edited by – Robert Swartz
Production/Distribution Companies – Myriad Pictures, Photon Films, Telefilm Canada, Lumanity Productions, Jobro Productions, Undisputed Pictures & Defiant Screen Entertainment
Starring – Jett Klyne, David Kohlsmith & Richard Armitage
With – Katherine Fogler, Maša Lizdek, Christopher Heyerdahl, Tara Nicodemo, Shuna Snow, Ari Millen, Morgan Bedard, Emersyn O’Neill, Joshua Bainbridge & Berkley Silverman
Rating – Australia: M;