Goodnight Mister Tom (British Telefilm)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: D Telefilm: B
John Thaw just seemed to have a knack and instinct for
good to great material. The star of
such British TV hits as The Sweeney, Inspector Morse and Kavanaugh,
Q.C. was dong fine material to the end of his career and the Goodnight
Mister Tom (1998) telefilm was one of them. This fine piece about the title character (Thaw) taking in a
young boy Willie Beach (Nick Robinson) when Nazi bombing raids force him to evacuate
his home city seems like an unlikely thing that will only be temporary. The father dead, the mother missing, Tom
embittered, one would at least hope Tom would help him for a brief spell.
However, Tom may not be as hardened or angry, as he first seems. He is not angry on the defensive, but turns
out to be so sick beyond sick of suffering other people’s foolishness that it
has become second hand. As it turns
out, Willie is a really good kid and Tom intends to help him out, then the
mother resurfaces and she is mentally ill.
The child abuse that follows is unbelievable and the film pulls no
punches in dealing with it like few programs anywhere have been. That is great, because the media’s ignoring
(and politicians encouraging) of child abuse in general has been extremely
criminal since the 1980s.
But this is not some political work. Instead, it is a very smart, intelligent
telefilm full of depth, realism, honesty, history and well-drawn
characters. Thaw does an amazing job of
convincing us that he is this elderly working class man who probably did not
get his due and Robinson is really good as the young boy not prejudiced by the
ugly world around him, though his naïve position puts him in more potential
jeopardy. Cheers to the film’s ability
to deal with anti-Semitism and the lack of child welfare, two situations that
have stayed as bad as they were 60 years ago after a temporary upswing to quash
the former and counter the latter. Goodnight
Mister Tom is a real surprise and one of the best telefilms WGBH Boston
Video has issued on DVD to date.
The 1.33 X 1 image is a tad hazy, but plays back well
enough otherwise. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo has not real surrounds to speak of, but sounds good for a relatively
recent recording. There are no extras
except the obligatory website link.
Good thing the film is so strong.
- Nicholas Sheffo
