Funny Boy

I just watched this film, and I enjoyed it so much I rushed here to give it my rating - My decided rating usually reflects the overall IMDb score. Therefore, I was surprised to find a 5.5 score. However, I saw that one person gave Funny Boy a 1-star rating based on the fact the language spoken was incorrect. Seriously? This film does not bill itself as a true story; it is a work of fiction set in a location and period of historical significance. But even so, no mature person rates a film based on one flaw. What about cinematography, the plot, the dialogue, the acting, etc. All these things should inform a person's score. Therefore, this film deserves a far better score than what it presently has.

Funny boy is something most Sri Lankan teenagers (who grew up in the late 80s and 90s ) can relate to. We lived most of our lives through a devastating civil war for over a decade. We suppressed so much during this time. Watching the main character struggle with expressing himself is so relatable it hurts! As much as I love Nimmi Harasgama, I think Brandon Ingram, Rehan Mudannayake and Aaarush Nand are definitely divas to watch out for!

I understand the controversy surrounding the casting, but as a Sri Lankan I stand by the artist's decision. It is a beautiful story Deepa Mehta wanted to share with us, and we need to respect the creative team and their decisions.

I wish the entire cast and crew the very best at the upcoming Academy awards! YOU GUYS HAVE MY VOTES! ( this includes my 10,000 other personalities.)

keep slaaaying!

You like it or hate it... the director is an international fame and loved her other works esp Water which was also nominated for Oscar ....this movie is based on a book by Shyam Selvadurai.. it is a coming-of-age story of a boy in 1970s Sri Lanka amidst uprisings, tensions between Tamils and Sinhalese, ethnic riots... although, author stated that it is not really his biography but it does appear as his personal narrative when I read about him.. but disappointed with the middle-of-the-road and 1980s style direction, performances are average too... a multitask watch...

After reading all the below reviews it seems that Tamilians got offended just because of the language spoken in the movie. Are you guys really a viewer or trollers?

Arjun is Tamil boy who realises he's gay in a country that criminalises people like him. The movie follows his life from childhood to young manhood, set in Sri Lanka during the ethnic war that resulted in somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 deaths, and one million Tamils migrating to India, Canada, and other countries. The story is one damn thing after another. The messiness, almost incoherence of the script, mimics this, but also distances us from the characters, who become objects moved around by events that they don't and can't control. Arjun's relationship with Shean doesn't free either of them, it's at best a brief time of mutual joy which can't resist the politics surrounding it. The acting is uniformly very good, helping us Westerners understand a culture so different and yet oddly similar to our own. I get the impression that Mehta had a clear vision of what she wanted, and it wasn't a neatly structured plot tied up with a neat bow of a resolution. I think she also wanted to show how avoiding politics is no defence. The movie was engaging despite itself, the kind that tosses up half-recalled scenes when you least expect them. Worth watching, even if only to get a vague notion of what it's like to live in a different society than your own. I read a number of attacks on this movie, all of which focused on two points, and which all betrayed that the critics had political axes to grind. Pity.