My Brother Tom

Jessica is a girl at the start of adolescence who cannot get close to anyone at school. Tom is a boy constantly knocked about by a local gang. The two meet and make a place of their own in the woods, where nobody can reach them. Both of them have something at home and around them that they cannot tell anyone about. Dom Rotheroe's British film does not show the abuse the two children suffer; the telling runs entirely on its consequences, and it does not excuse those responsible either. It is one of Ben Whishaw's first feature roles. The film is hard to watch and offers no comforting ending; whether the world the children build can protect them is left as a question.