The Outcast (2008)

In 1948, 10-year-old Lewis Aldridge watches his mother drown. His clueless father quickly remarries and maintains a chilly distance from the boy, who grows into a surly adolescent — exactly the kind of sexy, misunderstood kid James Dean would have played. The only character in The Outcast who sees past Lewis’ bristling surface to his gentle heart: his beautiful childhoood friend Kit, emotionally wounded by her own dreadful 1950s parents. What happens to these two tender creatures damaged by a repressive culture is, unfortunately, a less compelling question than why a smart writer like Sadie Jones would choose to write such a painfully old-fashioned novel. B-