This Boy's Life

Stars: Leonard DiCaprio (Gilbert Grape), Robert DeNiro (Mad Dog & Glory, Cape Fear, Awakenings), Ellen Barkin (Sea of Love, Switch, The Big Easy). What do you do if you're a single-parent kid and your mother marries a jerkwad? That's the dilemma faced by an adolescent Tobias Wolff (flawlessly played by Leonard DiCaprio) in director Michael Caton-Jones' faithful adaptation of Wolff's 1989 autobiographical memoir. The film opens with Toby and his mother Caroline (Ellen Barkin) moving to Seattle, circa 1957. Here, Toby takes up smoking, petty crime, and grooms the ubiquitous duck tail. When Caroline becomes involved with and eventually marries Dwight Hansen (Robert DeNiro), the Wolff's travel to Concrete, WA near the Canadian border, where Toby tries to adapt to small-town life. At first, he bends over backwards trying to please the authoritarian Dwight, but it's only a matter of time before stepfather and stepson square off. This Boy's Life succeeds both as a powerful dramatic film and as a penetrating look into the jealousies, fears, compromises and, above all, divided loyalties that can sometimes cripple two-family families. Although it made less than $5 million at the boxoffice, this outstanding drama should find a wider audience on video. Audience: Most adults and older teens; because of one really ugly sex scene the film is less suitable for younger adolescents.