The Boys Are Back is supposedly based on a true story set in Australia about a father who must raise his two sons after the sudden death of his second wife. Clive Owen plays the British now Australian father who has left a son in Britain with his first wife and has a young son (about 7) with his new wife outside of Adelaide. A lovely setting in a wonderful old-fashioned station farmhouse.

This Dad decides that there are no rules except to do what he says and that the answer to all questions is yes. You can guess what this total lack of discipline does with two boys. The movie opens with him speeding along a beach through the surf with his youngest son on the hood of the car. Gives you a good idea of this father's lack of any sense of the responsibility of fatherhood. He behaves more like a young brother to his boys than anything else.

He loves the boys but is not able to communicate emotionally, only through permissiveness. His youngest son is suffering at least as much as he is from the mother's death. And his older son is still hurting from his father's abrupt departure from his life many years before. The one woman who comes into his life, as a friend, with a daughter his youngest son's age, finally storms out telling him he is "irresponsible and is a pig."

It takes a major incident when he goes to Melbourne to cover the Australian Open (he is a sports writer) and leaves the boys home alone before he begins to realize that fatherhood is more than just being best buddies.

Very good film about families, loss, and fatherhood.

Really worth seeing. It is a joint British - Australian production.