Boy Swallows Universe review: Down and out in Brisbane

Early on in Boy Swallows Universe, which premieres January 11 on Netflix, 13-year-old Eli Bell breaks down in sobs at the end of a very rough week. When his stepdad asks him why, Eli sputters, “I don’t know! I’ve just got a whole lot of tears inside me. I can’t help it.”

It’s smart of him to practice crying now, because, as we’ll come to find out, Eli has a lot of rough days ahead of him. A run-in with a school bully and a caning from the vice principal is only the tip of the iceberg. Over the seven episodes of this Netflix limited series, our young Job will endure a parade of harrowing situations—domestic abuse, bodily mutilation, drug addiction, a car crash, terminal illness, and murder, to name just a few. By the closing scene, I’d lost count of how many violent deaths Eli had witnessed.

So it might surprise you to know that the show also evokes everything from Home Alone to Shameless to Degrassi to Moonrise Kingdom to Spotlight. These wild tonal shifts mirror the fractured thought patterns of a traumatized mind—which would be fascinating, if it seemed like the series were doing it on purpose.

Based on Trent Dalton’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, Boy Swallows Universe unfolds over the latter half of the 1980s in the suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. Eli (Felix Cameron) and his family—his mom, Frankie (Phoebe Tonkin); his big brother, Gus (Lee Tiger Halley); and his stepdad, Lyle (Travis Fimmel)—are living on the raggedy edge of poverty. Frankie is on the mend after Lyle helped her kick a nasty heroin habit, but that doesn’t stop him from secretly dealing on the side to make ends meet. And though Gus hasn’t spoken a word in years, he and his brother share a ride-or-die bond.

As for Eli, he’s the kind of precocious, talkative kid that’s a favorite of writers everywhere—one gifted with an overactive imagination, a keen sense of observation, and the ability to go toe-to-toe with even the most fearsome grownups. And like Arya Stark and Anne Shirley before him, Eli developed these skills in order to survive a world that, at best, ignores him and, at worst, wants him dead.

After Lyle’s crappy drug-dealing chops land him in hot water—and Frankie in prison—the brothers are sent to live with their absentee father, Robert (Simon Baker). Alas, his unchecked alcoholism means that it’s his sons who wind up doing the parenting. While Gus wants them to keep their heads down lest their lives get even worse, Eli is out for justice.

But that’s hard to come by when the local police are in cahoots with a pair of bad guys so cartoonish that they make Dr. Evil look subtle: Tytus Broz (Anthony LaPaglia), a Colonel Sanders–esque millionaire who runs a prosthetic-limb factory; and Ivan Kroll (Christopher James Baker), a cold-blooded cartel enforcer with a mutilated face and a passion for violence.

As misery piles on top of misery, Boy Swallows Universe becomes increasingly excruciating to watch. After a few episodes, we found ourselves developing a trauma response of our own; every time Eli had a nice day, our shoulders started to tense as we braced for the inevitable fall. At other times, the show shifts gears to slapstick zaniness, treacly sentimentality, or magical realism, grating against the heavy drama. (Are we supposed to think that Robert crashing around his house in a drunken stupor is hilarious or horrifying? The show sure hasn’t decided.)

But the series shines when it gives its heroes space to breathe. When they’re not screaming in terror or running for their lives, the central characters reveal themselves to be complex human beings—ones who are trying their best to be good and kind in a society that forces its poorest members to do bad things just to stay alive.

The two most compelling characters may be Lyle and Robert as a pair of deeply flawed fathers. Though they’re both inveterate fuck-ups who make life difficult and dangerous for Eli and Gus, their obvious love for Frankie and the boys makes them impossible to hate. A big part of this appeal is down to stellar performances from Fimmel and Baker, who make Lyle and Robert so likable that it’s easy to see why Frankie would fall for a couple of hangdog losers like them.

Tonkin breathes new life into the hoary trope of the battered woman. Her Frankie isn’t a victim; she’s a complicated person who’s just as messed-up as the men around her—but twice as brave. Like her sons, she’s always looking for the light in the darkest of places, which is a handy skill to have in a world this nasty.

The heart of Boy Swallows Universe is the dynamic between the two brothers, whose devotion to each other could only have been forged in the crucible of shared trauma. The show’s team made a wise choice when they cast Cameron as their lead. Playing Eli calls for an actor who’s capable of conveying the toll of psychological and physical torture while also being charming as hell. That’s a tall order for an adult performer, let alone a kid taking on his second-ever screen role; but Cameron knows exactly what he’s doing.

Gus, meanwhile, is the quiet, composed foil to the chatty, hot-tempered Eli. And considering he spends most of the series never speaking a word, it’s incredible how much Halley manages to communicate through his facial expressions and body language. Gus is a gentle, artistic soul in a world that would see him bloodied and ferocious; his steady refusal to give into his worst instincts is a breath of fresh air in a story that’s suffocated by rage.

Boy Swallows Universe has compelling supporting players in Bryan Brown as Slim Halliday, a real-life folk hero who escaped not once, but twice, from the infamous Boggo Road Gaol; and Sophie Wilde as a local news reporter who’s determined to expose the rot at the center of Brisbane. The latter becomes a major part of the series in the last two episodes, which jump ahead in time to when 17-year-old Eli (Zac Burgess), now a budding journalist, sets out to settle the score with his old enemies.

There’s a solid downbeat family dramedy nested inside Boy Swallows Universe, meditating on the compromises that come with living at the bottom rung of society. (A scene in which Lyle and an upper-middle-class housewife haggle over the price of a used Atari speaks volumes.) But the show doesn’t seem to realize that; it thinks that we also want a conspiracy thriller, an after-school special, and a Dickensian tale of childhood suffering.

It would’ve been nice if Eli weren’t forced to swallow the whole universe; a small part of it would’ve made a fine meal.

Boy Swallows Universe premieres January 11 on Netflix