December Boys is a 2007 Australian drama film directed by Rod Hardy and written by Marc Rosenberg and adapted from the 1963 novel of the same name by Michael Noonan.
He instead finds more fun in spending time with an older teenage girl named Lucy, who had come to the beach to stay with her uncle.
A few days later, the orphans peek through a window in Fearless' house to see Teresa undressing, but Misti, being the most religious of the four, throws a rock at the wall to make them go away.
Misti, Spark and Spit are eager to compete for the love of the seemingly perfect Fearless and Teresa, but Maps is less than excited, even saying to Lucy, "What's the big deal about parents, anyway?"
He takes leave of his friends and he watches on the front porch with Fearless and Teresa as the other three orphans walk away and begin playing on the rocks down the beach.
He meets up with Spark and Spit, and they toss the ashes and ring into the wind from the hill above the beach, remembering Maps and their time there, with a cheer to "The December Boys."
Freddie Highmore was considered for the role of Maps, but was replaced by Radcliffe because he would not leave the United Kingdom, as he wanted to be with his sick grandmother.
The website's consensus reads: "December Boys' location and settings are invitingly gorgeous, but the coming-of-age drama that takes place on them is uneventful and far too sentimental.
[7] Several newspapers remarked that the film was a commercial bomb due to its relatively large distribution and advertisements versus its small box office return.