BOUNCING BACK McAnulty and Owen jump around.

This season’s exercise in redemptive grief porn, The Boys Are Back is at least refreshing for its refusal to sugarcoat its protagonist, who to all appearances is a less-than-stellar father. After his wife (Fraser) dies suddenly, Australia-based sportswriter Joe Warr (Owen, strong as always) contends with raising a child on his own—this after callously leaving behind a son from his first marriage (MacKay) in England. Together, young Artie (McAnulty) and his dad establish a regimen of minimal chores and maximal fun, which seems strange to some but proves endearing to a lovely single parent (Booth), who shows up before the absence of a prospective love interest can make the audience too depressed.

Who’s this catharsis for, exactly? As a written memoir, The Boys Are Back probably had a purgative power for its author, Simon Carr. But transformed into a film by serial Oscar-baiter Hicks (Shine, Snow Falling on Cedars), it’s a level removed from the pain that inspired it. Taking a tragic situation and playing it for a kind of grotesque uplift, the movie depicts mourning for our tears, laughter and awards. It doesn’t earn any of them.

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