Stars: Clive Owen, Emma Booth, Laura Fraser, George Mackay, Nicholas McAnulty
Running time: 104 mins
Rating: ★★★

THAT’S boys as in youngsters not men about town having a good time.

Clive Owen is the sports writer father who is forced to move from shocked widower to hands-on dad after his wife’s death.

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Director Scott Hicks’s drama is based on a memoir by Simon Carr, The Independent’s political sketch writer, and has Clive Owen, abandoning his usual cool and debonair manner, playing the father emotionally unprepared to raise single handedly young son Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) in Australia.

Joe Warr (Owen) has little experience and even less idea how to bring up the six-year-old when he’s suddenly thrown into the role of single parent. He lets him run wild and neglects even the most basic housekeeping duties. Matters get even rowdier when his estranged teenage son Harry (George Mackay) from his first marriage joins them down under for the summer.

With Joe called away on business, he has no choice but to leave the two boys to fend for themselves, with only neighbour Laura (Emma Booth) to call on in an emergency. Owen abandons his usual cool demeanor to actually show emotion as Joe, a man who wants to do his best but doesn’t have the knowledge to do that.

Mackay and McAnulty are good too as his sons with Fraser (who makes some ghostly appearances) and Booth left on the sidelines as the two women in the story.