Story
Boys in the Trees is set during Halloween 1997 in suburban Australia. Corey (Toby Wallace) and his skater friends have just finished their final day of high school ever and are going to celebrate with a wild night full of booze, drugs and mischief. Corey isn’t sure he likes his friends’ plans for the evening and decides to take a walk on his own.
He finds himself at the skate park with an old childhood friend. Although they grew up together, the two boys have grown apart over the years. Corey is now part of the popular gang while his old friend Jonah (Gulliver McGrath) is the school outcast. The two boys revisit their friendship and play a familiar game of dare that takes them into some dark and spooky places full of ghosts and demons.
The night is a surreal journey between past and present and it becomes clear that there is a shared trauma in their past. Corey must find a way to put his guilt to rest and move on.
Themes
Bullying; rape; self-harm; death and suicide; sexuality; the supernatural
Violence
Boys in the Trees has many scenes of violence. For example:
Sexual references
Boys in the Trees has some sexual references. For example:
- A girl licks a lollipop seductively.
- One of the teenage boys says he’s going to look for girls to have sex with. He uses some coarse language to describe this.
- There are some confusing scenes with mild homoeroticism.
- There is a theme of discrimination against homosexual boys.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Boys in the Trees shows a lot of substance use. For example:
- Teenagers steal bottles of spirits from a parent’s house and drink alcohol.
- Teenagers smoke marijuana.
- Teenagers inhale nitrous oxide.
- Teenagers smoke cigarettes.
- In one scene the camera work shows the perspective of someone who’s drunk.
Nudity and sexual activity
Boys in the Trees has some sexual activity. For example:
- The romance between a central character and a girl leads to sex. This is implied in a scene that shows them lying naked in bed together, but sex isn’t shown explicitly.
- Teenagers kiss.
- A scene implies the sexual assault of two young boys.
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
Boys in the Trees has a lot of coarse language, which characters use aggressively throughout the movie.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Boys in the Trees is a dark and rather convoluted movie that explores what it’s like to be a boy on the cusp of manhood. It ambitiously tackles difficult issues of masculine friendships, affection and aggression; childhood trauma; self-harm; and suicide.
This is an emotional and sometimes quite disturbing movie that isn’t recommended for viewers under 15 years. There are many scary scenes, confronting themes and quite strong coarse language. If you have older teenagers who see the movie, you might wish to discuss some of the themes with them, including suicide and rape.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include:
- standing up to peer pressure to do what you believe is right
- following your dreams
- finding forgiveness and redemption from your past.