You can’t help but fall in love with Jack’s wide brown eyes, eager
face, and sincere stammer. But Jack grew up in prison after
committing a horrible crime as a boy and is trying to ditch his old
self and build a new identity. Based on a novel by British writer
Jonathan Trigell, Boy A‘s suspense telescopes into the past and
the future as we learn what Jack did and whether he can handle his new
life—first job, first girlfriend, first time on ecstasy, and so
on. The final scene bludgeons us with bathos, but everything
preceding teeters thrillingly between hope and disaster. (Uptown
Cinema, 511 Queen Anne Ave N. 7 pm, ticket info at www.thestranger.com/siff.)

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....