This Boy

Starring: Robert De Niro, Ellen Barkin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Getchell

A stunning rendering of Tobias Wolff's memoir. Brilliant performances by the three stars. DiCaprio is astonishing. An adult, literate drama in the best sense of the word. The picture captivates you the hard, old fashioned way: by creating real, vivid characters that make you care what is happening to and around them. You cannot take your eyes off this picture, or your mind either. In the end you realize that you have seen something very much like truth on screen. By now, it has become a matter of routine to say that DeNiro is brilliant, but it must be said again. The achievement of this performance is not that he plays a monster (any decent actor can do that) but that he lets you see the humanity within, which makes the character, if not sympathetic, at least comprehensible. (5/5/93)