Film assessment / ‘The Railway Youngsters Return'(PG) ***

“The Railway Youngsters Return” (PG) ***

IN 1944, there was a second blitz when German rocket bombs started to fall on Britain. 

Fifty-two years after the unique “Railway Youngsters” movie was made, Morgan Matthews directs a kind of a sequel, with among the authentic actors repeating the characters they performed then; or possibly completely different characters – I by no means noticed the unique.

On this sequel set in Oakworth village in Yorkshire, Jenny Agutter performs grandmotherly Bobbie whose daughter Annie (Sheridan Smith) is headmistress on the native faculty. Three evacuees from Manchester prolong the household: Lily (Beau Gadsdon), Pattie (Eden Hamilton) and Ted (Zac Cudby) are taken underneath their wing.

The kids come throughout a younger black US soldier hiding in a railway carriage who tells the kids that he’s on a secret mission. Really, he’s AWOL. The kids, promising to not reveal his secret mission and site, now agree to cover him of their home.

This sequel has occasional moments of gravity acknowledging racism and a throwaway line with a subtext about immigration and a thinly veiled nod to Brexit. 

Whether or not a scene the place US navy police would arrest and handcuff a British baby is debatable. However that is genial, pleasing stuff filmed in the identical location as the unique movie, which has remained resolutely the identical regardless of the 52 years between movies. 

Tom Courtenay as a genial uncle determine is a reassuring presence and the kids, two of whom make their movie debut, are the best age for the roles and delightfully endearing.

I turned conscious of Jenny Agutter as a 19-year-old skinny-dipping in “Walkabout”. Now 70, her filmography lists 118 credit. 

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