B.O.Y.: Bruises of Yesterday [Glasskår] **** (2024, Noa Risbro Hjerrild, Iben Dorner, Bodil Jørgensen, Jens Jørn Spottag) – Classic Movie Review 13,417

The 2024 film B.O.Y.: Bruises of Yesterday [Glasskår] is a heartbreaking Danish drama, an agonising story of a teenage boy who has everything and nothing going for him, It is very carefully and sensitively handled, persuasively written, well scored, and brilliantly acted. It is quite challenging, and not easy to watch, but immensely moving and rewarding.

Noa Risbro Hjerrild stars as a 16-year-old boy called Tobias, who is forced by his absent mother to spend the summer alone with his grandparents in the Danish countryside, and falls in love with an older young man, Aron (Alexander Mayah Larsen), a local 25-year-old house painter. Tobias is Johnny No Friends, and is desperately reaching out for love and affection however he can find it or whoever he can find it with. He literally really has no friends of his own age.

Tobias is abandoned by his uncaring mother (Iben Dorner), who sets off for Italy, and tells him to stop calling her and texting her, and hates his chilly father (Paw Henriksen) and won’t stay to live with him and his new family, when his grandfather (Jens Jørn Spottag) sends him away after his mentally fragile grandmother (Bodil Jørgensen) grows ill.

Then tragedy strikes, and the grandmother (Bodil Jørgensen) dies, and Tobias goes crazy. So, though he likes his grandfather (Jens Jørn Spottag), Tobias has no one to rely on or bond with, and instead goes cruising, and falls into a dark hole of self-loathing and self-harm, lust, sex, prostitution, loneliness, and despair.

Some people care for him, but not enough people, and the people who do don’t care enough, and don’t really value him. He feels worthless. His skateboard is his best friend. How could this happen? The film explains this clearly. It looks like some adults shouldn’t have children at all. What do they want them for if the can’t look after them and truly love them? Maybe some children aren’t loveable, but that’s a different story. Tobias is begging for love, and just can’t find it, especially from the people who should be giving it to him. Noa Risbro Hjerrild shows that Tobias is a thoroughly good person and would be so easy to love, but frankly nobody gives a damn, maybe the grandfather a little, maybe Aron a little.

[Spoiler alert] Just so audiences are not put off, it does manage a slightly hopeful ending, a little optimism, not forced or false. That’s good, because, throughout, the film has avoided falling into the traps of false notes.

Ultimately, thank goodness, it is a tale of resilience in misfortune, while dealing with the agonies of loss and death and the challenges of love.

Director: Søren Green.

Writers: Søren Green and Tomas Lagermand Lundme.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,417

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