“It’s very, very volatile at the moment,” says Cate Blanchett. We are talking, as you do, about religious and political dogma, colonialism and white supremacy, misogyny and the perilous state of democracy.
This time last year, Blanchett was at the Oscars, where Tár was nominated in six categories. Her latest venture is altogether different. In The New Boy, a film by Warwick Thornton, Blanchett plays a conflicted nun in a story of colonialism and Christianity in 1940s rural Australia.
The film opens by spelling out the context in brutal black and white: “For most of the 20th century, it was Australian government policy to breed out the black. This involved separating Indigenous children from their parents and their culture. The church and its missions were integral to much of this policy enactment.”
This is a film that looks exquisite and centres on a simple story. A young boy, played beautifully by Aswan Reid, arrives at the orphanage Sister Eileen (Blanchett) runs in the absence of the priest in charge.
