Director Cameron Nugent
Starring Keanu Wilson, Zeyah Pearson and Julian Atocani Sanchez
Rated PG
Score 6/6

In select cinemas around Australia from December 5, with additional locations throughout January, 2020.

In a slanted home beyond the reaches of a drought-ridden town, a loving Hispanic family accept an impossible blessing and name their only son “Sailboat”.
Sailboat brings love and hope to a family who have forged a simple but proud life in the deep South, but one afternoon he brings home something more: a “little guitar”. From this moment, Sailboat and his ukulele are inseparable, and when his ill grandmother requests he write a song for her, Sailboat meanders through adversity to deliver the unimaginable – the greatest song ever written.

When I mentioned this movie to a few people, they gave me some odd looks when I told them the title. Before we get too far into things, I must tell you that the trailer nearly had me in tears. The movie succeeded. I know that November is to early for a best of 2019 list, but this is the best movie that I have watched in 2019. With all the blockbusters that are going to be released over the next couple of months, there is a very real chance that A boy called Sailboat is going to get lost in the summer shuffle. This is the kind of movie that will give you a warm and fuzzy feeling by the time the credits roll.
Now there are a couple of interesting casting choices in the form of JK Simmons and Jake Busey but of course the real stars of the movie are Keanu Wilson, Zeyah Pearson and Julian Atocani Sanchez who played ‘Sailboat’.
Apparently A Boy Sailboat was director Cameron Nugent’s first feature, I look forward to seeing if there any more movies in the future from Nugent.
There was some interesting creative choices throughout the movie such as the use of subtitles when ‘Sailboat’ and his family visit his Grandmother in hospital and how the song is gradually revealed to ‘Sailboat’s’ friends and the rest of the town.