The New Boy: Cate Blanchett’s religious drama is heavy on symbolism, light on meaning

The Australian director Warwick Thornton will never run out of stories to tell in the outback, but that’s not to say they’re all equally essential. Back in 2009, Thornton won the prize for best debut in Cannes with his near-wordless love story Samson and Delilah. The languorous beauty of that piece set the tone for his career, and The New Boy could hardly be the work of anyone else: this tale of epiphanies and religious schooling at a tiny monastery in the 1940s has a woozy, episodic lyricism al