The Railway Children Return
A new era dawns for the railway children with a story every bit as resonant if not more powerful than the original.
A new enemy: Beau Gadsdon, Zac Cudby, Austin Haynes and Eden Hamilton
The Railway Children Return may be trading on the name of the cherished E. Nesbit novel, but it’s a new work that proudly stands on its own feet. Yes, it’s still drenched in nostalgia, it features trains and a whole lot of children, but it is as resonant a piece as any reworking of a classic. To lend authority, Jenny Agutter turns up in the franchise for a fourth time, following her role in the original BBC serial (1968), Lionel Jeffries’ acclaimed film version (1970) and the 2000 adaptation for television, in which she played the mother of her original character, Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Waterbury. And once again she’s a major asset.
Here, she plays Bobbie all grown up with children of her own and a grandson, Thomas (Austin Haynes). It is 1944, the Second World War is in its fifth year and families across England are being torn apart. The men have gone off to die overseas, the mothers are manning their homes in cities blitzed by German bombs and the children have been shunted off to the countryside “out of harm’s way.” It is here that the temporarily orphaned Lily, Pattie and Ted find themselves at the mercy of the outstretched arms of strangers, although because there are three of them, they are denied a new home. Not, that is, until Bobbie steps in and scoops up the whole boiling lot of them, against the wishes of her daughter (Sheridan Smith), the local head teacher.
Of course, it takes a while for the siblings to settle in, and Lily (Beau Gadsdon, excellent) is no pushover, so lessons have to be learned. Then the story takes a dramatic turn when Pattie (Eden Hamilton) stumbles across a man in a train compartment on a disused railyard and an element of Whistle Down the Wind settles onto the proceedings. The difference here is that the man (Kenneth J. Aikens) is an American soldier – and is black.
Part social history and part family adventure, The Railway Children Return has as much contemporary relevance as a period film can hope to essay. War is vilified as a contemptuous evil, the young outsiders are picked on by the local boys and racism proves inexplicable to children who have grown up in a world of harmony and privilege. And yet alongside this, the era is beautifully evoked, both sartorially and linguistically (drawing on such expressions as “Hell’s bells!! and “shut your cakehole!”), not to mention the welcome addition of Tom Courtenay as Bobbie’s father, who does his best impression of Churchill at the dinner table.
It is a shame, then, that the director Morgan Matthews has chosen to introduce an intrusive modern style of filmmaking, with fast cutting and neurotic handheld camerawork. Had Matthews elected to honour the strength of Danny Brocklehurst’s top-notch screenplay, he might have delivered a family film with the timelessness of, say, Yves Robert’s La Guerre des boutons (1962), the recent Swallows and Amazons and, indeed, Bryan Forbes’ Whistle Down the Wind (1961). As it is, it remains a germane and opportune work, with more than its share of genuinely moving moments.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jenny Agutter, Sheridan Smith, Beau Gadsdon, Kenneth J. Aikens, Austin Haynes, Eden Hamilton, Zac Cudby, Jessica Baglow, John Bradley, Hugh Quarshie, Tom Courtenay, Neil Hurst, Max Duane, Joseph Richards.
Dir Morgan Matthews, Pro Jemma Rodgers, Screenplay Danny Brocklehurst, Ph Kit Fraser, Pro Des Jeff Tessler, Ed Rebecca Lloyd, Music Edward Farmer and Martin Phipps, Costumes Dinah Collin, Sound Ben Baird, Dialect coach Elspeth Morrison.
StudioCanal UK-StudioCanal.
95 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 15 July 2022. Cert. PG.
