The Railway Children Return Review

Read the Empire review of the legacy sequel to the charming 1970s original.

The Railway Children Return Review

Lionel Jeffries’ 1970 The Railway Children is ‘Tea & Crumpets: The Movie’, a warm, likeable, jolly jape featuring plummy kids waving at the 9:15 to London, iced buns, paper chases and Bernard Cribbins flitting between comedy and pathos, all wrapped up in surprisingly timely concerns about downsizing and being kind to immigrants. The presence of OG Railway Child Jenny Agutter, reprising her role as Bobbie in this tougher but still kid-friendly re-spin, suggests this is a legacy sequel — a ‘Railway Children: Maverick’, if you like — but while Morgan Matthews’ film embraces plot cores, thematic ideas and visual motifs from the first film, it mostly does its own thing narratively.

The film’s smartest decision is to locate the kids-have-larks-in-the country gambit within the evacuation of children from major cities during World War II, adding a tangible undercurrent of fear that is maintained throughout (it also dovetails neatly with Agutter’s age). So mature Lily (Beau Gadsdon), headstrong Pattie (Eden Hamilton) and cheeky scamp Ted (Zac Cudby) are packed off to Oakworth and taken in by head teacher (and Bobbie’s daughter) Annie (Sheridan Smith), her son Thomas (Austin Haynes) becoming fast friends with his new housemates. The first half-hour or so is a likeable set of hi-jinx — shenanigans with chickens, mud, secret hideouts and run-ins with locals who chuck conkers and coal — that are elevated through the chemistry between Smith and the young actors. Things take a more dramatic turn when the gang discovers Abe (KJ Aikens), a young, injured African-American GI who spins an unconvincing line about being on a secret mission. With a wink to Bryan Forbes’ Whistle Down The Wind, the kids help the mysterious stranger without the knowledge of the grown-ups.

It’s Beau Gadsdon, young Jyn Erso from Rogue One, who gives the film a charismatic centre.

The nods to the original are subtle — the first appearance of Agutter coming down the hill is framed, flowers in the foreground, straight out of the 1970 version; Johnny Douglas’ original theme gets an airing in Martin Phipps and Ed Farmer’s big, enjoyable score — and the film doesn’t share much of the original’s interest and feel for the golden age of steam (this could be called ‘The Railway Siding Children’). Floating around the fringes, Agutter’s Bobbie is believably a former suffragette (there is a conversation about the lack of women in Whitehall that comes out of nowhere) and Tom Courtenay is a warm presence as Bobbie’s Churchill-impersonating brother-in-law, Uncle Walter.

It lacks anything that truly excites and delights, some of it is too on the nose, and the climax devolves into kids-saving-the-day 101 that plays against some of the earlier seriousness. But the filmmaking is well-crafted, Danny Brocklehurst’s screenplay adds some grit and, following on from X+Y, Matthews gets good performances from his young actors. KJ Aikens is appealing as Abe, but it’s Beau Gadsdon, young Jyn Erso from Rogue One, who gives the film a charismatic centre, by turns flinty and vulnerable, child-like and wise, perfectly capturing the halfway house of adolescence.

Perhaps not as heart-warming or charming as the first film, The Railway Children Return is engaging and entertaining in different ways, winningly played by its fresh cast.