Based on Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Written by John Collee
Directed by Bharat Nalluri, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Kim Mordaunt
Composers Johnny Klimek & Gabriel Mounsey
Production location Brisbane
7 episodes, Running time 49–77 minutes
Production companies Brouhaha Entertainment, Anonymous Content, Chapter One Pictures
Starring:
Felix Cameron as Eli Bell (age 13)[4]
Zac Burgess as Eli Bell (age 17)
Auden Ryan as Eli Bell (age 6)
Lee Tiger Halley as August “Gus” Bell, Eli’s brother
Jake Cockburn as August “Gus” Bell (age 7)
Travis Fimmel as Lyle Orlik, Gus and Eli’s stepfather
Simon Baker as Robert Bell, Gus and Eli’s father
Phoebe Tonkin as Frances Bell, Gus and Eli’s mother
Bryan Brown as Slim Halliday, Gus and Eli’s babysitter
Anthony LaPaglia as Tytus Broz, boss and drug dealer
Sophie Wilde as Caitlyn Spies, newspaper journalist
Toby Schmitz as Detective Tim Cotton, corrupt police officer
Christopher James Baker as Ivan Kroll, standover man/drug dealer
Deborah Mailman as Poppy Birkbeck, guidance counsellor
Adam Briggs as Alex Bermuda, Eli’s pen pal bikie in prison
HaiHa Le as Bich Dang, restaurant owner, drug importer and supplier
Zachary Wan as Darren Dang, Bich Dang’s son
Ben O’Toole as Teddy Callis, Lyle’s former best friend
Emily Eskell as PC Daley, police officer
Michael Denkha as George Masoumi, Slim’s friend
Eloise Rothfield as Shelly Huffman, school student (age 13)
Millie Donaldson as Shelly Huffman (age 17)
Matthew Knight as a prison guard, Boggo Road Gaol
Isaac Strutt–Stevens as Christopher, hospital cancer patient
Drew Matthews as Titch
Peter Phan as Tony Leung
Most 13 year old kids don’t have to worry about Vietnamese criminal gangs, not even in Brisbane, Queensland. But Eli Bell (Felix Cameron) has the bad luck to be the son of an estranged hopeless drunk, living with a mum (Phoebe Tonkin) recovering from heroin addiction, and a stepfather, Lyle, who is still selling, but is taking the incredibly risky and foolish cost-saving measure of cutting his product. Lyle is played by Travis Fimmel, who American audiences will recognize as Ragnar Lothbrok in the History Channel series Vikings.
Things catch up to Lyle, and those things do not go well for him. The shadowy figure controlling the syndicate sends a good and scary torpedo sort (played chillingly by Christopher James Baker) and in the course of some polite inquiries, Eli departs from the third finger on his left hand. The upshoot is that Lyle is missing and presumed dead, mum is in gaol for four years on drug charges, but Eli has found what everyone else was looking for; Lyle’s purloined stash of money. The other good news is that his older brother, Gus, who had been rendered mute from PTSD following an auto accident, regains his voice. Gus keeps another gift: a Cassandra-like ability to have oracular visions that while intense and accurate, are too vague to be of any use until after they eventuate. Cue the didgeridoo. Australians love to throw a bit of the supernatural in on their programming. The visions don’t really add much, but they are useful for cuing the viewer that shit is about to become real.
Episode five jumps ahead four years, and Eli (now played by Zac Burgess since Felix wouldn’t make a convincing 17 year old) and Gus welcome mum home from gaol. But the torpedo has gotten wind that Eli knows where the money is. Cue didgeridoo.
The plot is somewhat pedestrian, but the seven-part show on Netflix is well worth watching for the fine acting and just the general Ozziness of it all. I was in Brisbane for a couple of weeks back in ‘62, and left disappointed that I didn’t see any kangaroos bounding down the city streets, although recently a correspondent who lives in the ‘burbs there assures me they do have wallabies around the place, and they are a pest on the same level as our deer are. Sigh. Another fond stereotype blown to hell by ugly reality. Boy Swallows Universe doesn’t go overboard with it, but it does add a nice element to the series. Superior acting from both the kids playing Eli, mum and dad (who convincingly plays an alcoholic trying to turn things around) and of course, Ragnar, who manages not to invade London this series.
Now on Netflix.