Boys is a coming-of-age tale about an addled prep school student who nurses a woman back to health after an accident and becomes involved in her cryptic past. John Baker Jr. (Lukas Haas) is a tormented high school senior outcast who's weary of his upper-crust boarding school life and dreads his future as a supermarket chain manager. When he finds Patty Vare (Winona Ryder) unconscious in a field after being thrown from a horse, Baker sees this as an opportunity to break out of his humdrum
existence, and he smuggles her into the school to take care of her. The relationship blooms into a somewhat bizarre love affair, as John discovers that Patty is concealing a mysterious secret involving a missing baseball player and a stolen car. Although the film takes a little time to get started, what originates as an analysis of guarded youths making foolish judgments evolves into a celebration of adolescent insurrection. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
The actors do a nice job of investing it all with a certain conviction, and there's a fairy-tale tinge to some of the action that gives it a certain charm.
The movie's not helped at all by Ryder, who seems uncomfortable playing femme fatale to these grimy-fingered boys, as if she doesn't believe anyone could feel this adulative about her.
It is essentially a coming-of-age movie, but the circumstances are so eccentric and the relationships so unique that Cochran seems to be reaching for something more inscrutable, more ambiguous.
What begins as an edgy examination of sheltered, selfish kids making stupid choices devolves into a ludicrously mannered celebration of adolescent rebellion.
Writer/director Cochran is stronger on capturing the texture surrounding her characters' converging experiences than making much of it when they do get together.
Wow this was a bad movie. Taped it off tv as I had never seen it and had liked a few of Winona's older movies. I remember hearing bad reviews on it when it was first out, but figured I'd check it out anyhow. I mean, I like some crap, let's face it. But this..... this was a whole new level. Ten minutes in and I'm
already bored crapless. Ugly film to look at, not a whole lot happening in story either...I stuck with it to see what all the flashbacks were hinting at. Surely be interesting at the end... but no, lame as, and don't even get me started on the ending. I mean, where the hell where they running off to?! And Winona's acting in this was like she was mentally challenged, not injured. Extremely ill advised. Avoid.
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