Lassie

Yorkshire, the end of the thirties. A mining family is in difficulty; the pit is closing and there is no money. Their dog Lassie is known in the neighbourhood and waits for the boy outside the school every day. The father has to sell her; the buyer is the duke of the district and wants the dog for his granddaughter. Lassie runs from the new house and comes back; she is sold again, and this time taken to the north of Scotland. She runs from there too. The distance is hundreds of miles. Charles Sturridge writes and directs. Peter O'Toole, Samantha Morton and Peter Dinklage are in the cast. The source is Eric Knight's novel. The same novel had been filmed in the forties and that film became a long series; this version stays closer to the book. The matter it treats is economic necessity; selling the dog is shown not as a cruelty but as a decision with no alternative. The journey makes up most of the narrative and along it the dog meets different people. It was shot in real locations in England and Ireland. Its limit is predictability; where the narrative is going is clear from the start. The period reconstruction is detailed and the mining village is built with care. Who it is for: viewers who like family films and classic adaptation. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the emotional register high, and the pace slow.