The Railway Children Returns (PG) - Movie Review

In The Railway Children Returns, Jenny Agutter breaks all records by returning to an acting role that she first played on a BBC television production in 1968. 

Her character Bobbie was the older girl in a close family who were sent to live in the Yorkshire countryside following difficulties experienced by their father in London at the turn of the last century.  The family’s adventures, while living beside a busy railway line, has proved continuously popular to screen audiences since the story of the Railway Children was first filmed.

After the BBC series, a movie of the same name, The Railway Children was shot in 1970.  The new movie is the direct sequel to that movie and is set in the same Yorkshire village where Bobbie is now a grandmother living with her daughter and grandson. 

The Railway Children Returns follows a group of children who are evacuated from Liverpool to the countryside, where they begin an idyllic adventure life beside the railway.  They live the rough and tumble life of childhood until they find a young soldier hiding from everyone in a disused railway carriage.

The Railway Children Returns which is now showing at Athlone IMC has a modern message in its very traditional story.  The art direction of the movie and its use of authentic costumes of the period is first-class and it should surely be in line for BAFTAs in those categories when that time comes around again.

However Jenny Agutter is totally underused and while there are several references to the 1970 film, a missed opportunity to reinvigorate the Bobbie character was missed, writes David Flynn.  While there were reminders of the original movie, there was little mention of the earlier characters, with the exception of Bobbie’s brother, Peter, who was revealed to have been killed in a previous war.

Sheridan Smith showed some vigour in the role of Annie, the village schoolteacher and daughter of Bobbie.  Austin Haynes as Annie’s son, Thomas and Beau Gadsdon as Lily shone very well and there were a few good actors like Tom Courtney as an elderly uncle and there was a comic role for John Bradley as a railway employee.

The storyline is adequate and old-fashioned, but it works on many levels.  The main criticism was the under-use of Bobbie, or proper development of her back-story since the original movie happened.