BOYS IN THE TREES (2016)

Studio:       Mushroom Pictures
Director:    Nicholas Verso
Writer:       Nicholas Verso
Producer:  John Molloy
Stars:     Toby Wallace, Gulliver McGrath, Mitzi Ruhlmann, Justin Holborow, Terence Crawford, Trevor Jamieson

Review Score:

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Summary:

Surreal events on Halloween night compel two former friends to reflect on childhood choices that shaped who they became.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After school on Halloween in 1997, aspiring photographer Corey Matheson hangs out with teenage bully Jango, a fellow classmate and friend, and several other buddies at a skate park. Corey’s former childhood friend Jonah accidentally bumps Jango. Jango punches Jonah and Corey snaps a picture of Jonah with a bloody nose on the ground.

Corey’s friends accompany Corey back to his father’s house where they drink vodka and hang out. Corey is dismissive of his sheepish father’s proposal to go away for the weekend. Mr. Matheson and Jango are both discouraging toward Corey when they learn he is considering applying to the University of New York. With Jango continuing to demean Corey’s dream of leaving their small hometown, Corey throws the university admission materials into the trash.

Corey, Jango, and the others don masks and go out on their bikes to play Halloween pranks. The boys make photocopies of Corey’s picture of Jonah and post them all over the neighborhood.

Jonah is seen alone and despondent at the local river.

The boys meet up with several girls in a cemetery. Corey has a conversation with Romany, who challenges Corey about letting his poor choice in friends negatively affect his personality. Corey and Romany flirt with a mutual romantic interest in one another, but are intentionally interrupted by Jango, who shares marijuana smoke by blowing it into Romany’s mouth.

Corey goes off by himself. Jango rallies the other boys and tries convincing Romany to ditch work and hang out with them.

Corey ends up at the park where he finds Jonah skateboarding alone. Jonah falls and hits his head, prompting Corey to come over. The two former friends end up briefly reconnecting and decide to leave together when Jango and the others arrive.

Jonah convinces Corey to play an imaginary fantasy game that they used to play as children while walking. Jonah tells Corey that there is something he wishes to show him. As the night continues, Jonah presents stories and challenges to Corey under the pretense of playing the game. Over the course of the evening, Corey gradually recalls his former friendship with Jonah and reflects on the person he has become since.

Jonah takes Corey to a large drainpipe where he tells the story of Jeannie. Jeannie was supposedly a young girl who followed her older sister to the pipe when she was enticed there by two older boys. Now, Jeannie is rumored to be a ghost who does not even know she is dead. After Jonah and Corey leave, a man in a white suit emerges from the darkness of the pipe.

Jango becomes jealous while watching one of his friends make out with a girl at the park.

Jonah tells Corey the story of Edward, a recluse who gave up on his lofty dreams, before tricking Corey into entering Edward’s yard and locking the gate. Jonah asks Corey what happened to the person he knew who used to enjoy being scared.

After discussing death outside the pigeon coops on the roof, Jonah convinces Corey to sneak into the school with him. Likening the other boys to wolves, Jonah tells a story about how the other boys transformed while all he could do was run because he did not change with them.

Corey and Jonah hide when Jango and his friends also sneak into the school. Corey dons Jonah’s light-up mask and frightens the other boys with a fire extinguisher so that he and Jonah can escape outside.

Corey and Jonah continue reminiscing as the evening continues. While Jonah waits outside, Corey goes to see Romany at the drugstore where she works. As they talk about lost friends, Romany expresses frustration with Corey for being too consumed with his friends and failing to notice her.

Jonah vanishes after glimpsing the man in the white suit.

Jango’s crew arrives at the store. Jango tells Corey that they vandalized the grave of Jonah’s mother and want Corey to take pictures of it. With Romany’s words weighing on his mind, Corey tells Jango he has no desire to be cruel. A fistfight breaks out between Corey and Jango. Corey leaves after refusing to take Jango’s hand.

Corey cleans up the vandalized exterior of Jonah’s house. He then returns home and retrieves his University of New York materials from the trash. Afterward, Corey returns to the drainpipe and finds Jonah. Together, they vandalize Jango’s house.

While Jonah waits in the yard, Corey goes to Romany’s house and apologizes for his earlier behavior. Jonah and Romany kiss and have sex. Romany suggests that Corey follow through on his dream to leave town and pursue school in Canada with her.

Outside, Jonah sees a woman in Day of the Dead makeup and vanishes once again.

Corey returns to the street to find Jonah missing. Sights and sounds lead Corey to a strange Day of the Dead gathering where the Man in White is singing and Jonah is one of the people being mourned. Corey finds Jonah after the ceremony and asks what that place was. Jonah explains that you meet the Man in White twice. The first time you don’t remember. The second time you never forget.

A seemingly supernatural presence chases Corey and Jonah through a forest. They escape to a tree decorated with toys from their childhood. After playing briefly, the boys climb the tree to continue fleeing from the Man in White. The higher they climb, the younger they become.

Corey recalls the turning point in his friendship with Jonah. As children, two older boys assaulted them at the river. Corey chose to run away, leaving Jonah behind to be raped. Corey muses about changing their story’s ending to one where he realized who his true friend was and did not turn his back.

Jonah takes Corey to the spot at the river where they went their separate ways. They embrace. Corey apologizes for everything, to which Jonah half-jokingly responds that the preceding night kind of made up for it. Jonah points so that Corey turns around. Jonah disappears. Corey sees Jonah’s body floating facedown in the river.

Emotionally devastated, Corey calls his father weeping. Mr. Matheson arrives with the police. Mr. Matheson relays that the police think Jonah fell and hit his head while crossing the river and had been dead since late afternoon. Jango and the others arrive at the scene. Corey and Jango embrace and weep.

One year later on Halloween, Corey and Romany Skype with each other from their separate universities before the connection is lost. Corey dresses in a Day of the Dead costume and prepares to go out wearing Jonah’s mask.

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Review:

Corey and Jonah were inseparable as kids.  Technically, they’re still kids, and in more ways than one at that.

But Corey transformed in step with classmates whose interests evolved from imaginary fantasies to more achievable ones like girls, partying, and becoming defiantly independent.  Jonah fell behind to be beaten for the crime of being unable to break into the cool clique.  Unwilling to sacrifice his own rising social status, Corey contentedly abandoned Jonah to regular abuse from the wolves.

With the last semester of high school on the horizon, the tumultuous transition into adulthood has everyone anxious, yet afraid to relinquish diminishing grasps on childhood.  Thoughts, hopes, and fears of what comes next weigh heavily on the mind.  All the while dreams big and small fight against hometown roots from which they may never have the fulfilled ambition to break free.

On Halloween night in 1997, circumstances reunite Corey and Jonah for a strange walk through their past, present, and future.  At the edge of their journey are Jango, Jonah’s bully and Corey’s best friend, and Romany, the object of Corey’s affection.  As their evening weaves between real life and waking dream, surreal events and half-remembered recollections challenge Corey and Jonah to reflect on the boys that they were, the men they are becoming, and the people they could have been.

Take the coming of age element from “Stand by Me,” dunk it in a “Donnie Darko” tone, and you’re partway toward getting a grip on the fairytale feel of “Boys in the Trees.”  Australian writer/director Nicholas Verso uses crisp cinematic sights and needle drop sounds to paint a portrait of transitioning adolescence during the late 1990s, though its themes are in no way dated to the setting.

In this vein of dark, dreamy drama, feelings of fear stem from bittersweet sadness that comes with passing into adulthood.  The stoners versus loner setup covers every maturation conundrum from indeterminate sexual orientation to malleable self-identities drifting in and out of uncertain social orbits.  It’s hard to say for certain if the movie has a definitive message in mind or firm conclusion to make.  Perhaps the idea is to merely echo confusion felt by any teen coming to terms with being left behind by a loved one, or being the person who left someone else behind.

Subtlety is not Verso’s strong suit, as the film works harder than necessary to establish its environment.  A soundtrack overloaded with A-side cuts from Bush, Marilyn Manson, and The Presidents of the United States of America is so relentlessly ever-present, you half expect Kurt Loder to break in with an MTV News bulletin about President Clinton.  Set dressing is similarly lacquered in a dozen coats of nostalgia ranging from Nirvana posters to dial-up internet loading screens.  Everything is then framed in slow-motion sequences whose proportions outweigh their importance.

Characters are also archetypes of the most obvious classifications.  Corey’s single father is a meek parental pushover, albeit well meaning.  Jango’s alpha male intensity mixes a meaner Scut Farkus with a malicious Steve Stifler.  Romany is an overlooked good girl convinced she can crack Corey’s bad boy shell (she literally, half-humorously identifies Corey as a sheep in wolf’s clothing given his fright mask Halloween costume).

Except the deeper reason why these personalities feel so familiar is because they represent people we know.  Like it or not, they even mirror who we are, were, or have the potential to become.

Viewers will undoubtedly connect differently to the film depending upon age and station in life.  Those currently unable to step far enough back for a reflection of personal introspection may not connect at all.  But in this day and age where a two-word birthday greeting on Facebook counts as maintaining a friendship, “Boys in the Trees” keys into unfortunate truths about disposable relationships, and complicit roles played in creating effects we may never fully face.

The greatest spell cast by “Boys in the Trees” is in delivering an initial impression of being overly on the nose with melancholic metaphors.  Yet by the time the film comes full circle, its quiet malaise morphs into a deeply affecting mood whose visual and emotional imprints cut sharply.

There’s much more to this movie that isn’t uncovered until its stylized theatrics are swept aside.  In those haunting moments, touchstones are triggered that may have you on a similar wavelength of wonder regarding the hows, whys, and whos of those that have come into and then out of your life.

Review Score:  75

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