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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1990s
    Movies - 1990s Movies - T 2 Mins Read

    This Boy’s Life (1993)

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    This poignant adaptation of a Tobias Wolff memoir takes a realistic look at growing up in the 1950s.

    Leonardo DiCaprio plays Toby (Tobias), a young man who’s travelling west in 1957 with his flighty mother, Caroline (Ellen Barkin). She long ago left his Dad and older brother and is now fleeing the latest in a series of cruel boyfriends.

    Eventually, mother and son reach Seattle. There, she takes up with mechanic Dwight Hansen (Robert De Niro) living in the backwater town of Concrete.

    As the destructive stepdad, De Niro gives vent to the power of his dark side, but without eclipsing DiCaprio’s sensitive and sympathetic portrayal of the troubled youth.

    Dwight propounds the verities of 1950s familyhood with increasing vehemence and violence, fuelled by day-long doses of alcohol and a bizarre self-centeredness.

    The film deals with how Toby (or Jack as he prefers to be called) copes with the socially acceptable insanity that has come to reign in his ramshackle household (he has three step-siblings, too). He alternates between bouts of sensitivity with an effeminate friend, Arthur, and frequent loutishness with delinquent buddies.

    Dwight Hansen
    Robert De Niro
    Caroline Wolff
    Ellen Barkin
    Toby Wolff
    Leonardo DiCaprio
    Arthur Gayle
    Jonah Blechman
    Pearl
    Eliza Dushku
    Roy
    Chris Cooper
    Norma
    Carla Gugino
    Skipper
    Zachary Ansley
    Kathy
    Tracey Ellis
    Marian
    Kathy Kinney
    Arch Cook
    Robert Zameroski
    Chuck Bolger
    Tobey Maguire
    Jerry Huff
    Tristan Tait

    Director
    Michael Caton-Jones

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