This Boy's Life

Release date:April 9, 1993

Directed by:Michael Caton-Jones

Rated:

Runtime:115 minutes

This Boy's Life is a 1993 film adaptation of the memoir of the same name by Tobias Wolff. It is directed by Michael Caton-Jones and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Tobias Wolff, Robert De Niro as stepfather Dwight Hansen, and Ellen Barkin as Toby's mother, Caroline. The film also features Chris Cooper,... Carla Gugino, and Eliza Dushku, as well as Tobey Maguire in a small role, his first feature film role. Nomadic, flaky Caroline Wolff just wants to settle down in one place, find a decent man, and provide a better home for her and her son, Toby . When she moves to Seattle and meets the seemingly respectable Dwight Hansen , she thinks she has got it made. Toby, however, feels differently after Dwight's true personality is revealed after spending a few months with Dwight and his children away from Caroline. The boy's stepfather-to-be seems to want to mold Toby into a better person, but his method includes emotionally, verbally, and physically abusing the boy.
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A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost... interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below. The author of a memoir may be referred to as a memoirist. Memoirs are structured differently from formal autobiographies which tend to encompass the writer's entire life span, focusing on the development of his or her personality. The chronological scope of a memoir is determined by the work's context and is therefore more focused and flexible than the traditional arc of birth to old age as found in an autobiography. Memoirs tended to be written by politicians or people in court society, later joined by military leaders and businessmen, and often dealt exclusively with the writer's careers rather than their private life. Historically, memoirs have dealt with public matters, rather than personal. Many older memoirs contain little or no information about the writer, and are almost entirely concerned with other people.
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