The Boys in the Trees

The Boys in the Trees is a surprising film with a dark fairy tale atmosphere. It's Halloween in Australia, 1997. Corey and Jonah used to be friends as children and their lives couldn't be more different on the cusp of adulthood. Corey hangs out with a group of bullies who have no aspirations except to be bullies that rule their small town as adults. They intimidate children and adults alike, smoking, drinking, and taking whatever they like. Jonah is more of a loner and is consistantly tormented by Corey and his friends. Halloween night gives the two teens a surreal journey through their memories.

From the beginning, Corey seems to have already chosen to follow in his groups' footsteps, terrorizing the locals and living it up for his adult life when he truly wants to go off to college for photography. Things change when he causes Jonah to fall and hit his head skateboarding. Everything is so different when it's just the two of them so they can be simply themselves instead of filling their roles. It starts out with Jonah telling Corey ghost stories and later seeing them come to life in chilling ways. A girl's sister was lured away by wolves, leaving the smaller girl to fend for herself and got lost. Now, she only realizes she's dead in the light where she stays, leaving the living with her shrieks echoing in their ears.

Then, Jonah goes through some memories, framing the bullies as werewolves hunting for the weak and the bullied as still human, hiding from the monsters. This contrasts with what Corey's friend said, that you have to kill a few sheep to hang with the wolves, giving Corey a view of what life has been like for Jonah and others like him. While there are fantastical elements, harsh realities are seen right alongside them. The truth about what happened to Jonah (as a teen and a child) and why their friendship ended is heartwrenching. This is all framed with Jonah and Corey in a tree with their childhood belongings, switching between teen and child versions of themselves playing and reciting children's rhymes.

The 90's setting is nostalgic and realistic. The nostalgia comes in the clothes and the music. The soundtrack is amazing with songs from Pearl Jam, Rammstein, and Marilyn Manson perfectly completing scenes. The realistic parts come with the jarring homophobic comments from Corey's friends and the violence in the film. It's a touch that some would avoid, but it's a part of 80's and 90's film that is painful to watch now. Overall, The Boys in the Trees is a wonderful movie that proves to be fantastic and whimsical while still exposing harsh truths. The ending seemed to be getting to idyllic and then soundly grounds itself in reality.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins