Robert De Niro gets top billing, but young Leonardo DiCaprio is the revelation of This Boy's Life, an astute, often painful drama of growing up in the 1950s Pacific Northwest, based on the autobiographical novel by Tobias Wolff. DiCaprio plays Tobias, a good kid with a bad boy streak but an unwavering love for his divorced mother (Ellen Barkin). "I want to be a better boy", he promises from under a greasy pompadour, and tries to prove it when she marries single father Dwight (DeNiro), a bully who parents through intimidation and humiliation. A pre-Titanic DiCaprio... is magnetic in his first starring role, full of anger, hope and confusion as he drifts back to juvenile delinquency and his intensity gives the true story of survival and triumph its charge. DeNiro is frightening and pathetic as Dwight, and Dwight's youngest daughter is played by future star and vampire slayer Eliza Dushku. --Sean Axmaker [show more]
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Memoir-based drama about a teenage boy and his abusive stepfather starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. Toby (DiCaprio), based on author Tobias Wolff, and his mother, Caroline (Ellen Barkin), are an unsettled pair. Toby's father left them when the boy was young and the abusive behaviour of Caroline's latest boyfriend forces them to move cities. When she is seduced by the charming figure of Dwight Hansen (De Niro) their luck appears to have changed: Dwight offers to take in the troubled Toby while Caroline sorts her life out. Dwight, however, turns out to be a vicious disciplinarian, who argues furiously with the rebellious Toby. The boy's dreams of escape grow as the violence of his stepfather increases, but can he find a way out before it's too late?
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