History Film / BoyA

''Boy A'' is a 2007 British television drama based on a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_A 2004 book of the same name]] by Jonathan Trigell. Starring Creator/AndrewGarfield and Peter Mullen, ''Boy A'' follows Jack Burridge, formerly Eric Wilson, a twenty-something man released from prison for a dark childhood act. Eager to finally live his life and move on from his past once and for all, Jack nonetheless struggles with the weight of what he once did on his conscience, constantly fighting the urge to open up and reveal his past to his workmates even in spite of his kindhearted caseworker’s insistence that “Jack is a new person.” Jack is eventually able to truly redeem himself by saving a little girl’s life, but the truth about him and what he once did unfortunately comes out sooner than later and things quickly spiral out of control as a result.

!! This film provides examples of:

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Jack’s haunts him like a dark cloud following his every move, even as he tries to lead a normal life. Forced to live a lie for the rest of his life under his new court-assigned identity, Jack struggles with the weight this has on his conscience and desperately wants to come clean to his new friends. However, the caseworker talks him out of doing so, arguing that this would have grave implications for his safety, especially with vigilantes out for his blood and a £20,000 bounty placed on his head.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Jack is exposed as Eric to the public by the caseworker’s son in a fit of jealous rage, completely ruining his life and tarnishing the reputation he worked so hard to earn. He is fired from his job, his coworkers and girlfriend want nothing to do with him anymore, and his caseworker Terry is completely unreachable to make matters even worse. Hounded by reporters and an angry mob, he flees his home and boards a train to Blackpool, where he stands at the edge of a pier before a sudden CutToBlack.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Heavily implied at the end with Jack standing at the edge of a pier, his new life and all that he’d worked for destroyed completely by forces outside of his control.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Sadly [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]. Jack works tirelessly to redeem himself for the part he played in Angela's death, creating a new life for himself alongside new friends and a girlfriend while also saving a child's life from a car wreck. Unfortunately, the counselor's son destroys everything he'd worked to achieve and his [[DownerEnding new life ends as soon as it began.]]
* FreudianExcuse:

** [[spoiler:Zeb, the caseworker’s son, goes out of his way to destroy Jack’s life by exposing him as Eric to the public, doing this out of envy for the kind of treatment Jack has been getting from his own father.]]

** Terry. As Jack’s kindhearted and fatherly mentor and counselor, all Terry wants is to ensure he reintegrates into society and leads a good life on the right path. While Terry’s unwavering commitment to Jack is admirable and results in him being successfully rehabilitated, it also has the unfortunate knock-on effect of [[spoiler:irreparably damaging his already brittle relationship with his own son, something that eventually leads to the film’s tragic and bleak conclusion.]]

* TheScapegoat: Jack. While his involvement in Angela’s death is never made clear, the British press sees him as every bit the same murderous sociopath that Philip was.
* TheSociopath: Philip is a low-functioning example of one. [[spoiler:FreudianExcuse or not, Philip was a deeply disturbed young boy with a troubling penchant for violence and killing defenseless animals for fun, as shown by his callous torture and killing of an eel they fish out of a local river. He initiates the murder of a schoolmate named Angela and Eric eventually joins him, though how much involvement he had in the act exactly is left up to the viewer’s interpretation.]]
* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:Although he was a deranged sociopath who tortured and killed animals and even murdered a classmate Philip came from a broken home much like Jack did, and to make matters worse was also raped habitually by his older brother. Philip’s actions were utterly depraved and reprehensible but at the end of the day, he was just a deeply broken little kid with deep-seated trauma and severe mental health issues that went unchecked, turning him into an absolute monster. Additionally, unlike Jack, Philip could never find peace or redemption of any kind and either hung himself in his cell out of guilt or was murdered by other young offenders. Jack believes the latter was what actually happened.]]

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Sadly [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]. Jack works tirelessly to redeem himself for the part he played in Angela's death, creating a new life for himself alongside new friends and a girlfriend while also saving a child's life from a car wreck. Unfortunately, the counselor's son destroys everything he'd worked to achieve and his new life ends as soon as it began.

* TheScapegoat: Jack. While his involvement in Angela’s death is never made clear, it’s obvious that the British press sees him as every bit the same murderous sociopath as Philip was.

* PrecisionFStrike: [[spoiler:Terry screams at his indignant son that he's a "fucking little cunt!" ''twice'' when he finds out that he's the one who leaked Jack's true identity to the press. Also doubles as CountryMatters.]]

** Terry. As Jack’s kindhearted and fatherly mentor and counselor, all Terry wants is to ensure he leads a life on the right path. While Terry’s unwavering devotion to Jack is admirable and results in him being successfully rehabilitated, it has the unfortunate knock-on effect of [[spoiler:straining his relationship with his own estranged son even further, eventually leading to the film’s tragic and bleak conclusion.]]

* NiceGuy: Jack. Putting aside his involvement [[spoiler:in a childhood murder]] Jack is genuinely a kind, friendly person with a childlike disposition who unfortunately has absolutely no social skills from being imprisoned for so long. Garfield portrays him so sympathetically and with such care and pathos you genuinely want to see him finally find peace and feel absolutely terrible for him when the DownerEnding rolls around.

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Subverted with Angela. [[spoiler:Although the British tabloid media in its usual appeals to emotion portrayed her as an innocent victim of pure evil, the flashbacks we see of Angela instead establish her as being a [[RichBitch spoiled, privileged and entitled brat]] who looked down upon Eric and Philip for their lower class status. This bullying proves to be the final straw for both Philip and Eric, and Philip proceeds to knife her several times before eventually killing her, with Eric joining him eventually.]]

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Subverted with Angela. [[spoiler:Although the British tabloid media in its usual appeals to emotion portrayed her as an innocent victim of pure evil, the flashbacks we see of Angela instead establish her as being a [[RichBitch spoiled, privileged and entitled brat]] who looked down upon Eric and Philip for their lower class status.]]

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Subverted with Angela. [[spoiler:Although the British tabloid media in its usual appeals to emotion portrayed her as an innocent victim of pure evil, the flashbacks we see of her instead establish her as being a [[RichBitch spoiled, privileged brat]] who looked down upon Eric and Philip for their lower class status.]]

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The film and the book that it was based on both drew widespread comparisons to the notorious [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger James Bulger case]] of 1993, a ''nightmarishly'' sad murder case from England involving two ten-year-old boys who did ''unspeakable'' things to an innocent toddler. The tragedy ignited a media firestorm unlike any other and prompted aggressive debate over the treatment of juvenile offenders convicted of serious crimes, remaining infamous in the UK to this day as a result. Both kids have since been released as adults under new identities, but while one of them now lives a quiet life in complete anonymity the other has been sent back to prison for possessing indecent images of children. Despite the apparent similarities, the nature of the crime as depicted in ''Boy A'' is completely different, and the main inspiration for the story was actually a childhood friend of the author's who initially struggled to readjust to normal life after a stint in prison during his youth (though '''not''' for murder, as you might be led to believe) but eventually grew into a model member of society.

* AntiHero: Although portrayed sympathetically, Jack himself falls squarely under this on account of his being [[spoiler:an ex-con in prison for most of his life for his involvement in a childhood murder.]]

''Boy A'' was released in the United Kingdom as a television film in September of 2007 and theatrically in the United States in July 2008 by Creator/TheWeinsteinCompany. For his sympathetic and compassionate performance in this quiet, small-scale drama Garfield received significant critical praise and even a BAFTA.