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Director John Boorman is best down for DELIVERENCE, which this film couldn’t be more different from. The film is a sentimental look at the young life of Bill Rowen (Sebastian Rice-Edwards, only film performance), who lived in London during the German Blitz with his eccentric parents Grace (Sarah Miles, TV’s QUEENIE) and Clive (David Hayman, THE TAILOR OF PANAMA), nymphomaniac teenage sister Dawn (Sammi Davis, FOUR ROOMS) and little sister Sue (Geraldine Muir, JUST ASK FOR DIAMOND).
The film works because it takes the child’s point of view about the air raids, which, to Bill, are a blast. Based on Boorman’s own experiences, the film is rich with detail, if not a little idealistic and sentimental at times. It really captures the true sense of being a kid at the time and how being young at any time in history is relatively the same.
Filling out the film are a mix of eccentric adults. There’s a great moment early on when the parents get drunk and as Bill and Sue go to bed he says to her: “Don’t worry we won’t be anything like them. We’re nothing like them now.” This is the tone of the entire film, which is filled with irony. What happens to the Rowen’s house and Bill and Sue’s fishing trip are ironic to the point of the divine. The film’s use of music and staging gets heavy handed at times and some jokes don’t seem to be as natural as others, but the whole film works because the whole family is wacky, but believable enough that you know people like this could exist.
I can only imagine what it was like to grow up with bombs destroying your next-door neighbor’s house. This film puts us in the time with a group of people who float through life. It’s the kind of people I wish I would have known if I were there at the same time and place.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
