December Boys

So will there be life after Hogwarts for Daniel Radcliffe? Well that depends. The fact is he lucked into the biggest character in box office history because J.K. Rowling thought he looked the part.

But he is not a naturally gifted actor. He’s improving all the time but the special effects in December Boys are unlikely to divert anyone’s attention from his self-conscious performance.

His character Maps might smoke, throws the odd strop and fumble around with a pretty blonde, but he still looks less like a horny teen than a rabbit in headlights.

At the outset, Maps is whiling away his youth at a Catholic orphanage in the middle of nowhere with three younger friends. They are Spark (Christian Byers), Spit (James Fraser) and Misty (Lee Cormie), the freckled, bespectacled baby of the bunch.

As a special treat for their birthdays – which all fall in December – they are to spend the summer (this being Australia) at a picturesque cove with a bluff old sailor and his wife.

The boys are soon enchanted by their French neighbour Teresa (Victoria Hill). Except Maps. He’s fallen for the minxy charms of fellow holidaymaker Lucy (Teresa Palmer, exuding considerably more magic than her co-star).

When Misty overhears Teresa’s motorcyclist husband say that they should adopt one of them, the young rascals try to out-worm each other into the couple’s affections.

With the adult Misty narrating in the time-honoured “That was the summer that everything changed… / She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw…” style, December Boys sticks rigidly to the coming-of-age template.

Crisply shot by cinematographer David Connell, the South Australian locations offer a nostalgic, golden glow to proceedings. Sadly, the characters inspire little sense of wonder.

Nor is there much by way of adventure. The Virgin Mary and some cartwheeling nuns appear to Misty in visions, but this Catholicism-is-fun angle quickly becomes tiresome.

Conversely, the more tangible plot devices – the motorbike, a horse, and a big fish - are weakly deployed. At least the boys get to see some boobies and Maps does get to act on his impure thoughts.

Does this wannabe Stand By Me deserve to be panned by me?

Maybe not. But its lack of effort is exemplified by a tacked-on coda which employs actors who are way too old to be playing characters who weren’t even teenagers in the 1960s.

You'll always remember it as one of the more forgettable unforgettable movie summers.

Elliott Noble