A single mother and her difficult son find family life isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be in this drama adapted from writer and professor Tobias Wolff's 1989 memoir of the same name. Nomadic, flaky Caroline (Ellen Barkin) just wants to settle down in one place, find a decent guy, and provide a better home for her handful of a son, Toby (Leonardo DiCaprio). When she moves to Seattle and meets the respectful, respectable Dwight Hansen (Robert DeNiro), she thinks she's got it made. Toby, however, feels differently ...
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A single mother and her difficult son find family life isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be in this drama adapted from writer and professor Tobias Wolff's 1989 memoir of the same name. Nomadic, flaky Caroline (Ellen Barkin) just wants to settle down in one place, find a decent guy, and provide a better home for her handful of a son, Toby (Leonardo DiCaprio). When she moves to Seattle and meets the respectful, respectable Dwight Hansen (Robert DeNiro), she thinks she's got it made. Toby, however, feels differently after spending a few months with Dwight and his children and away from Caroline. The boy's stepfather-to-be seems to want to mold Toby into a better person, but to do so he emotionally, verbally, and physically abuses the kid. The marriage proceeds, and soon Caroline, too, recognizes Dwight's need to dominate everyone around him. She sticks with it, though, convinced it's the best thing for her son, and several years of dysfunction ensue. During this time, Tobias befriends another misfit, the possibly homosexual young Jonah (Arthur Gayle), while continuing to chafe under the yoke of his repressive stepfather. This Boy's Life provided the first lead role for future superstar DiCaprio. The film was written by Robert Getchell, who also penned such mother/son fare as Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and The Client. Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
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Robert De Niro, Ellen Barkin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Blechman, Eliza Dushku. Fine in fine packaging. Language: English. Run time: 120 mins. Originally released: 1993. 115 minutes. From personal collection, NOT a rental. Used, but looks barely touched. Caroline Wolff, divorced and with no job prospects, takes her son Toby on an aimless journey across America. They stop for a while in several towns, where Caroline gets involved with different men, but they always end up back on the road, running--until Caroline meets Dwight Hansen, a military man whom she believes will bring stability to their lives and help raise Toby. But Dwight proves to be a sadistic dictator, determined to impose a rigid and cruel discipline on Toby. When the boy finally cannot take it anymore, he looks for any escape...even if it means he'll have to fight Dwight to get out. This film is based on Tobias Wolff's much-praised autobiography about his troubled youth.
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