#travisfimmel #boyswallowsuniverse #vikings #zacburgess

► Like the book, Boy Swallows Universe is set in lower-class Brisbane circa 1985, a city filled with lowlifes and troublemakers who orbit the life of 13-year-old protagonist Eli (Felix Cameron and then Zac Burgess). They include his mentor, Slim (Bryan Brown), his dad, Robert (Simon Baker), his mother, Frances (Phoebe Tonkin) and her boyfriend, Lyle (Travis Fimmel) – yet another father figure. There’s also Eli’s mute older brother, Gus (Lee Tiger Halley), who communicates by writing words in the air with his finger, displayed for the audience in white powdery letters like skywriting from a tiny plane.

The storyline is more a scattered array of vignettes than a plot per se, covering – among other things – Eli assisting Lyle with drug dealing, engaging with various underworld figures, dealing with bullies at school and exchanging letters with an imprisoned pen pal (Adam Briggs). There are recurring visions of Eli and Gus in a car flying through space, which begin as dream sequences but are interestingly recontextualised, moved into the realm of memories or quasi-flashbacks.

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