This Boy's Life

If you want a drama that takes its characters as seriously as its plot, This Boy's Life is available in Australia on Disney Plus and Stan, and in the US on Kanopy right now. A tight runtime that never overstays its welcome. 1,095 people have weighed in on TMDB, and the verdict leans heavily positive. Robert De Niro's performance alone is worth the time investment. Start it on Disney Plus whenever you need something guaranteed to land.

Part of the current wave of titles people are actually watching, This Boy's Life earns its spot. This Boy's Life takes its time building the world its characters inhabit, and the patience pays off. When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape. Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin lead a cast doing genuinely serious work here. It was released in 1993. The performances in This Boy's Life do a lot of work in the silences between the dialogue. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

Viewers drawn to character-driven storytelling will find plenty to sit with in This Boy's Life. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. The complete film is available and best experienced without too much prior knowledge of where it goes. Robert De Niro is the centre of it, and it is one of their strongest performances on record. The patience it asks of you early on is paid back with interest.