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Boy, directed by Taika Waititi, starring James Rolleston, Taika Waititi

Taika Waititi’s new film Boy is a sweet, mostly lighthearted story of child neglect, seen through the rose tinted lenses of childhood, where fantasy and youthful imagination can make even the worst upbringing bearable.

It’s set in 1984 when the music of Michael Jackson and the Patea Maori Club collide for 11-year-old Boy (James Rolleston), who lives on the east coast of the North Island and is thoroughly obsessed with Jacko and his cutting edge dance moves.

Boy can barely remember his father Alamein, and his younger brother Rocky hasn’t met him at all. So Boy dreams up adventures Alamein may have been up to — he’s a deep-sea diver, a war hero, that sort of thing.

The truth is that Alamein’s been inside. He’s a small-time crook, and just as Nana departs in her Humber to attend a tangi, he arrives back at the house with a couple of thugs in tow. Alamein is not really here to see the kids, he has another motive entirely.

The growing-up-unsupervised thing is an expansion of the theme seen in Watiti’s short film Two Cars, One Night, and although at times he goes for the whimsy of a Wes Anderson film, Boy certainly doesn’t shy away from showing some anger among the smiles.

Taika Waititi plays Alamein to perfection, a stoner criminal for whom life is about slacking and getting by one day at a time. But the real triumph of Boy is that for all Alamein’s faults, the story doesn’t judge him or the other adult characters. They’re not presented as good or evil, they’re just based on the people — some dodgy, some eccentric, some reliable — that Waititi remembers from when he was growing up. And kids don’t tend to judge.

Excellent soundtrack too, with the Patea Maori Club’s “Poi E” used as an integral element, a score by Phoenix Foundation, and even some Prince Tui Teka to tickle your nostalgia gland.

Boy has plenty of serious subject matter and social commentary hiding under the surface and occasionally we get a peek. But it doesn’t detract from the uplifting theme of growing up Maori in a quiet, naive town on the coast. This film is a huge achievement — Waititi’s very own End of the Golden Weather — and it’ll win hearts wherever it screens.

Trailer: Boy