Gravitas Ventures
Putting yourself in your art is hardly unique or unusual or even unexpected — it’s what often drives the work in the first place after all. Certainly Spielberg has put himself in movies in different ways, and even does that more obviously in The Fabelmans — but not everyone has either the interesting life or skill behind the camera to tell a story about yourself so directly. Still, you have to admire the audacity of someone to try that in their first movie.
Ocean Boy (called Bosch & Rockit in Australia) comes from Australian director Tyler Atkins, co-written with Drue Metz — Tyler is mainly known for winning the first season of the Australian version of The Amazing Race Australia in 2011, but he’s been able to direct a few shorts until now — this is his first feature film.
The movie is loosely based on his own childhood growing up in the Gold Coast in Australia, although I have no real idea what’s true and what isn’t as it feels pretty loose in more ways than one. Teenage Rasmus King plays young Rockit, a kid who struggles in school but is home on the surf — Rasmus King is actually a professional surfer so whenever we see shots of Rockit surfing, it is almost certainly always him.
Rockit’s father is Bosch, played by Luke Hemsworth (of late, lamented Westworld fame) and is sort of loving but irresponsible weed farmer who’s raising his son by himself. The mother is out of the picture, but only later do we begin to understand why. The fun-loving, easygoing Bosch is pressured to start selling cocaine, but has no real intentions of being that sort of hardcore drug dealer.
But opportunity arises when a bushfire wipes out their crops, and Bosch flees with his son in tow — lying that they’re going on vacation for a few months, but in reality fleeing the corrupt cops and dealer looking for him. Still, once they find a nice spot near picturesque Byron Bay, Bosch doesn’t hesitate to start flirting heavily with local woman Deb (Isabel Lucas). As both of them are attractive, obviously they’re both into it.
For his part, Rockit meets and connects with a young girl his own age named Ash (Savannah La Rain) in a way that I wonder how true it is to the director’s real story. The movie definitely tries to get into the young romance dreamlike vibe, but sometimes those romantic bonding scenes go on too long, and you begin to wonder if there’s really a story here behind the aesthetic.
The movie takes heavy advantage of beautiful scenery to set the mood, and Rasmus King is engaging as the young kid who’s in more trouble than he thinks. Luke Hemsworth elevates a lot of his more cliched dialogue with a lot of charm and depth — in a movie where he’s a supporting character of sorts, he’s the more compelling protagonist.
I’m not sure how intentional that was though, as the movie piles on the aphorisms and sappy phrases as it goes on, hoping to connect to you by virtue of the performances and the overall vibe. The vibe I could take or leave, but I did end up warming to the characters by the sheer force of their connections. It’s interesting to see a forgettable soft-focus tale of oneself, but this does feel caught in the ephemera, stuck in a place between dream and reality. Perhaps it’s not the epic cinema the director hoped for, but it’s entertaining enough to get by.
Ocean Boy has a run time of 1 hour 46 minutes and is not rated.
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