This Boy's Life

The fifties. Toby, moving from town to town with his mother Caroline, meets Dwight in Washington State. The man seems kind at first; after the marriage everything inside the house changes. Michael Caton-Jones directed, from Tobias Wolff's 1989 memoir. Robert De Niro plays Dwight and Ellen Barkin plays the mother. Toby was Leonardo DiCaprio's first leading role; he was seventeen during filming. It is also Tobey Maguire's first credited appearance, and the two went on to work together repeatedly. The screenplay departs from the book in places. The mother's name was changed from Rosemary to Caroline and a marital conflict absent from the memoir was added. Wolff questioned the change at first and eventually approved it. It opened wide on 23 April 1993, entering the chart at number ten, and took around 4.1 million dollars domestically. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 76 percent, the consensus calling it a harrowing, moving drama and singling out DiCaprio's breakthrough. Roger Ebert rated De Niro's work here as one of his most distinctive roles. Who it is for: viewers who like drama about domestic violence and are curious about both actors early on. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a comfortable watch. The film shows the stepfather's small humiliations in detail.