Premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and flying under the radar ever since was Warwick Thornton’s spiritual drama, The New Boy. Considering it stars two-time Oscar winner, and one of the best actors in the world, Cate Blanchett, the film is likely to get a lot more attention now as Vertical plans to release it on May 23rd. But first, a new trailer has dropped for the film that shows Blanchett as a nun given reason to question her faith.
As seen in the trailer for The New Boy, Blanchett plays a renegade nun, Sister Eileen, in 1940s Australia. She takes in an Aboriginal boy (played by Aswan Reid) delivered to the monastery in the dead of night, only to discover that he has special powers that force her to question her faith’s traditions.
The film is directed by Thornton, cinematographer on The Sapphires whose 2009 directorial debut Samson and Delilah won the Camera d’Or at Cannes. Speaking of The Sapphires, Thornton managed to snag its director, Wayne Blair and star Deborah Mailman for roles in The New Boy, as well.
SYNOPSIS: “The New Boy” takes place in 1940s Australia at a remote monastery with a mission for Aboriginal children run by a renegade nun, Sister Eileen (Blanchett). A new charge (Reid) is delivered in the dead of night – a boy who appears to have special powers. However, the boy’s Indigenous spiritual life does not mesh with the mission’s Christianity, and his mysterious power becomes a threat. Sister Eileen is faced with a choice between the traditions of her faith and the truth embodied in the boy in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.
