Worth: $12.00
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Cast:
Beau Gadson, Eden Hamilton, Zac Cudby, Kenneth Aikens, Jenny Agutter, Sheridan Smith, Tom Courtenay, Austin Haynes, John Bradley
Intro:
… an undistinguished piece of British period cinema.
Fifty-two years is a long time between an original film and its sequel. There was a slightly longer wait between Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Returns, but unlike Mary Poppins, the 1970 film The Railway Children directed by Lionel Jeffries does not have the power of Disney behind it to make it a universally recognised classic. Nonetheless, Jeffries’ film (an adaptation of E. Nesbit’s 1905 novel) is beloved, especially in England for its charm and simple depiction of kindness in an Edwardian Yorkshire village.
Director Morgan Matthews (x+y) is working from a script co-written by the film’s producer Jemma Rogers and Daniel Brocklehurst. The screenplay is inspired by the 1970 film and not intended to be a continuation of Nesbit’s work; yet there is something distinctly Nesbit about the film, especially in its anti-war stance, consciousness about class, and investigation of racial tensions. Nesbit was a Fabian Socialist, and such concerns would likely have captured her interest, although it appears unlikely she would have come at the subject with as much gratuitous simplicity as Matthews’ film.
The year is 1944 and children are being evacuated from large cities to avoid German bombings. The Watts children from Salford in Manchester are set on their way to Yorkshire to be billeted with any local family that will take them in. The trio comprise of Lily (Beau Gadson), Pattie (Eden Hamilton), and the very young Ted (Zac Cudby). The film starts with the family saying goodbye to their mother and boarding a train. Lily, who has become used to being the head of the family is a no-nonsense streetwise teen. She defies the conductor on the train and pulls the emergency brake so other kids can take a toilet break. Immediately, we are told that Lily is a force to be reckoned with, so too her tough and clever sister Pattie who refuses to be dolled up in a pretty dress just to catch the eye of a potential family.
The Watts children end up in Oakenshot, where they are eventually taken in by Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Waterbury (Jenny Agutter reprising her 1970 role) and Bobbie’s daughter Annie (Sheridan Smith) who is living as a single mother to Thomas (Austin Haynes) whilst her husband is away at war. At first, Annie is reluctant to take on three evacuees but Bobbie insists, and when Bobbie insists, people listen.
It takes time for the Watts family to adjust to their bucolic surroundings. The working-class children have never seen skies so clear or smelled air that isn’t tainted by industrial pollution or wartime scarring. Despite their new circumstances, the trio are hearty and waste little time dispatching local bullies who call them “slum rats.” There is tension between Lily and the cloistered Thomas, who like many in the village play at war without a real understanding of how it has affected the rest of the country. Local station master Richard (John Bradley) pretends he is decoding important messages for the government and Thomas uses abandoned trains to spy on non-existent potential enemy forces. It is in one of these abandoned trains that the children come across Abe (Kenneth Aikens), a young Black GI who claims he is on a secret mission for the American Army but in reality has gone AWOL due to the racist treatment of Black soldiers by the American Military Police.
It becomes incumbent on Lily and her crew to help Abe get out of Yorkshire by getting him on a train to Liverpool, from where he can sail back to New York and reunite with his mother. Lily is a canny teen and picks that Abe is nowhere near as old as he pretends. He joined the army to avenge the death of his beloved older brother, but faked his papers to be able to do so. He is injured and in genuine danger of a fate that could indeed be equal to death if he is found by the MPs. The children devise a plan to help Abe escape, which includes moving him in to the Waterbury’s home.
In the interim, Annie has received a telegram about her husband. Bobbie notes that she knows what it is like having to get such news, as she lost both her husband and her brother in World War One. This plot point explains why other legacy characters are not in the sequel and reiterates the devastation war brings on innocent lives. Seemingly to make up for the lack of legacy actors, Tom Courtenay is introduced as the kindly (Great)Uncle Walter, who is Bobbie’s sister Phyllis’ widower. Walter does an impersonation of Winston Churchill at a family dinner and Bobbie agrees that he is a great man, although notably not a supporter of suffragettes. Bobbie also has a dig at gender equality in Walter’s wartime department. The scene is cringe-inducing because it can’t settle on a point of view. Churchill was undoubtedly a wartime titan, but in a film that wears its ostensibly progressive politics on its sleeve it doesn’t gel.
Although the original film had social messaging built into it with the plot about the Waterbury’s father being wrongly accused of being a spy and the rescue of a Russian man, Matthews’ film is much more blatant about its politics. Unfortunately, those politics, although important, seem blind to the reality of the United Kingdom in the 1940s. The film is so nationalistic it implies that only Americans would act in a racist way to Black folk, which is a deliberate elision of the truth.
Moving beyond the obvious philosophical shortfalls of the film there is an issue with some of the practical aspects of the action. It’s highly unlikely that a group of American MPs would be able to kidnap and handcuff an English girl, despite her involvement in aiding an AWOL soldier. The Railway Children Return doesn’t quite know how to ground its plot in reality, but one thing it does very well is utilise the talents of its cast.
Beau Gadson is a standout as the tough but damaged Lily, whose bravery goes beyond insisting on aiding Abe. Lily, like so many young women of the era, has learned what it is to accept trauma and become resilient. Gadson negotiates Lily’s emotional state with grace and her performance gives veracity where the script does not. Equally impressive is Kenneth Aikens as Abe. Abe’s vulnerability is matched by his anger and defiance and Aikens manages to embody the character with the skill of a more seasoned performer. Agutter seems genuinely pleased to be back in Oakenshot – a place she’s returned to no less than four times over different mediums. The adult cast are accomplished, John Bradley can be relied on for humour, Sheridan Smith for pathos, and Tom Courtenay for stately wisdom – yet they all make room for the juvenile cast to have their moments.
Ultimately, the film suffers because it doesn’t quite know who its audience is. It’s a passable period adventure for children but isn’t quite engaging enough for a young audience for whom many of the references will make little sense. For the fans of the 1970 film, the call-backs to Jeffries’ movie won’t compensate for the contrived sensibilities and clear problems with plotting. Matthews’ film constantly undoes itself and nowhere is that more evident than in the rushed finale that puts the “happy ending” on screen as postscripts and photographs. It may have been a budgetary issue but adding those scenes would have benefited the film.
The Railway Children Return is a film that only rarely hits the emotional beats it wants to. It’s also a reminder that there is a far superior film about wartime evacuees starring Tom Courtenay in Jessica Swale’s 2020 movie Summerland. One charitable thing that can be said about The Railway Children Return is that it is mostly harmless, although it would be better suited to an ITV movie (such as Agutter starred in when she played Mrs Waterbury) than a general release. The film isn’t awful, but it does nothing to improve on Jeffries’ work and if taken as its own entity without reference to the original, it is simply an undistinguished piece of British period cinema.
