--- title: "Somewhere Boy" year: 2022 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/somewhere-boy" fi1m_id: "somewhere-boy" imdb_id: "tt13045814" tmdb_id: 210180 wikidata_id: "Q115814536" fi1m_score: 85 critics_reviews: 3 published: "2026-10-07T19:45:50.790569+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T19:45:51.321198+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Somewhere Boy (2022) Created by Pete Jackson · MPA TV-MA · Drama ## Identity Somewhere Boy - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/somewhere-boy - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** somewhere-boy - **IMDb ID:** tt13045814 - **TMDB ID:** 210180 - **Wikidata ID:** Q115814536 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13045814/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/210180, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q115814536 **Fi1m score: 85** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A boy raised on fear and old records steps into a world that has not been warned about him > Pete Jackson’s eight-part drama about a boy raised in isolation and told monsters wait outside is quiet, odd and tender, and Lewis Gribben’s Danny is a performance we have gone on thinking about. The cousin’s subplot and a thriller-shaped finale cost it a little. ## Synopsis Danny (Lewis Gribben) is eighteen and has spent his whole life inside a house in the woods with his father, Steve (Rory Keenan). Steve has told him that monsters killed his mother and still roam outside, and he keeps the boy in with locked doors, old records and old films. Then one night Steve goes out and does not come back. Danny is found, and taken to live with his aunt Sue (Lisa McGrillis), her partner Paul (Johann Myers) and her son Aaron (Samuel Bottomley), who is Danny’s age and wants nothing to do with him. Danny has never seen a shop, a car from the inside or a teenager, and he still believes everything his father told him. ## Review Danny (Lewis Gribben) is eighteen and has never been outside. His father Steve (Rory Keenan) has told him since he was small that monsters killed his mother and that they are still out there, past the trees. Inside there are old records, old films on the television, a locked door and the two of them. Pete Jackson’s eight-part series, directed throughout by Alexandra Brodski, starts in that house and asks what happens to a boy raised like this when the door is finally opened. Steve is gone within the first episode, and Danny is sent to live with an aunt he has never met. Gribben is the reason to watch, and we would say that even if the rest were ordinary. He plays Danny tall and folded in on himself, head down, hands at his sides, speaking the careful, old-fashioned English of someone who learned it from films made before his father was born. He flinches at cars. He answers questions nobody meant to be answered. When he is frightened he goes quiet rather than loud, and Brodski keeps the camera on him and waits. We were surprised how much of the first two episodes we spent with a hand near our mouth. The scene that did it is small: Danny on a doorstep with nothing between him and the sky, deciding whether to step out. Gribben plays it as if the sky were a ceiling that has not yet fallen. Keenan’s Steve is seen mostly in flashback, with Samuel McKenna as Danny at seven, and his is the harder part. A kidnapper who loves his child is a stock figure. A grieving man who has built a prison out of bedtime stories because he cannot face the world without his wife is not, and Keenan plays him warm: he dances the boy round the house to the records, reads to him, feeds him, and makes sure he is never allowed out. We did not like him. We could not quite hate him either, and that is Jackson’s writing as much as Keenan’s face. Brodski shoots the two worlds differently without making a fuss about it. The house is lamplight, brown wood and record sleeves. The outside, the aunt’s street, the shops, the back seat of a car, is flat, overcast and a little too wide, so Danny always looks as if he has been set down in the wrong frame. The music is Steve’s music, the old songs he raised the boy on, and it follows Danny into the present, where it sounds like something left on in an empty house. Lisa McGrillis’s Sue, the aunt, wants to do right by this boy and also wants her kitchen back, and McGrillis holds both at once without letting either tip into caricature. Johann Myers’s Paul, her partner, is the calm one, and the series lets him be simply decent. Samuel Bottomley’s Aaron, Sue’s son, is Danny’s age and wants nothing to do with him; Bottomley is good at the particular meanness of a teenager who has been told to be kind. Aaron is also where the series wobbles. The trouble he is in on his own account belongs to a more ordinary drama, and each time Jackson cuts to it the series goes slack. And in the last two episodes the story starts to behave like a thriller, with questions about the past and people who might answer them, and the plot is pushed harder than the first six needed. We will not say where it goes. We will say the quieter programme, the one about a boy learning what a bus is for, was the better one, and that Jackson knows it, because he keeps coming back to it. Watch it over a few nights rather than one. The episodes are short and end on edges, and the edges land better with sleep between them. Go into the first one knowing no more than we have told you. The best thing the series does is make us see a kettle, a road and a stranger’s face the way Danny does, and that only works once. *Fi1m score 85, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Somewhere Boy worth watching?** *Somewhere Boy* is worth watching for anyone who likes a quiet, odd, tender drama built around one performance, and we scored it 85. Lewis Gribben's Danny, a boy raised in isolation and told monsters wait outside, is the reason to watch. The cousin's subplot and a thriller-shaped finale cost it a little, so watch it over a few nights rather than one. **How long is Somewhere Boy, and what is it rated?** *Somewhere Boy* is rated TV-MA by the MPA in the US. It is a drama series. **Where can I watch Somewhere Boy in the US?** *Somewhere Boy* is streaming on Hulu and Disney+ in the US. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Somewhere Boy, and is it suitable for children?** *Somewhere Boy* is not a violent series, but it is not for children: it has no UK certificate and carries a TV-MA rating in the US, and its subject is a boy kept locked in a house by a grieving father. The fear is of the quiet kind, a frightened young man on a doorstep, rather than anything shown. It suits older teenagers and adults. **How does Somewhere Boy compare to Room?** *Somewhere Boy* and [*Room*](https://film.one/film/room) both follow a child leaving a locked place and meeting a world he has been told nothing true about, but the series spends eight episodes on what comes after, where the film gives it only its second half. *Room* is the tighter and more painful of the two; *Somewhere Boy* is stranger and gentler, and its captor is a father who loved his son. Watch *Room* for the mother; watch the series for Danny. **What should I watch after Somewhere Boy?** After *Somewhere Boy*, try [*Room*](https://film.one/film/room) (2015, Fi1m 84): A mother and son leave the shed they were held in; Jacob Tremblay’s eyes do the rest. Then [*Boy A*](https://film.one/film/boy-a) (2007, Fi1m 73): Andrew Garfield as a young man released into a world he has never been allowed to know; and [*Ratcatcher*](https://film.one/film/ratcatcher) (1999, Fi1m 88): Lynne Ramsay’s Glasgow boy finds beauty in a street of bins where nobody told him to look. ### Reviews we read (3) - **The Guardian**, Rebecca Nicholson (90/100, inferred): Nicholson calls the series a sad, beautiful, clever, and special drama that rewards watching with minimal prior knowledge. She singles out its distinctive visual identity and its careful blend of thriller, gothic, family, and coming-of-age elements. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/16/somewhere-boy-review-channel-4-danny-lewis-gribben) - **The i Paper**, Rachael Sigee (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the series a special drama and one of the year’s best. She singles out Lewis Gribben’s remarkable lead performance and Rory Keenan’s devastating portrayal of a father warped by trauma. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/somewhere-boy-channel-4-review-best-darkest-dramas-2022-1913269?amp=&=&ito=social_itw_theipaper) - **Evening Standard**, Abha Shah (4/5): Shah calls the drama captivating and says it will knock viewers’ socks off. She praises Lewis Gribben’s haunting performance as Danny and the story’s thoughtful exploration of love, grief, and denial. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/somewhere-boy-review-channel-4-will-knock-your-socks-clean-off-b1032293.html) ## Details - **Created by:** Pete Jackson - **Creator:** Pete Jackson - **Director:** Alexandra Brodski - **Writer:** Pete Jackson - **Cast:** Lewis Gribben as Danny; Samuel Bottomley as Aaron; Rory Keenan as Steve; Lisa McGrillis as Sue; Johann Myers as Paul; Yao Chin as Doctor; Samuel McKenna as Danny Age 7; Shauna Shim as Siobhan - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 16 October 2022 - **Genres:** Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bQfVrB7ikM ## Where to watch in the US - Hulu: streaming, hd - Disney+: add-on, uhd *Checked 2026-10-07.* Also available in: AT, AU, DE, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser* (1974): Herzog’s foundling, raised in a cellar, learns the world one bewildering object at a time. - *Dogtooth* (2009): Lanthimos’s parents keep their grown children behind a fence; colder, crueller and just as strange. - *Room* (2015), Fi1m 84: A mother and son leave the shed they were held in; Jacob Tremblay’s eyes do the rest. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/room.md) - *Boy A* (2007), Fi1m 73: Andrew Garfield as a young man released into a world he has never been allowed to know. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/boy-a.md) - *Ratcatcher* (1999), Fi1m 88: Lynne Ramsay’s Glasgow boy finds beauty in a street of bins where nobody told him to look. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ratcatcher.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/somewhere-boy