The Winslow Boy

A British film about a case. Ronnie is fourteen and at naval college. One day he comes home early. He has been expelled. He is accused of stealing a friend's postal order; the sum is five shillings. The boy says he did not do it. His father asks once, takes the answer, and pursues it. The difficulty is that the college belongs to the crown. Bringing a case against the king is not an ordinary route and a particular permission is needed first. The father hires counsel. Sir Robert is the most expensive and the coldest name of the period. From there the film is a story of wearing down. The case drags, the money runs out, the man's health fails, his elder son's education is cut short, and his daughter's engagement is broken. The press enlarges it. Photographers wait outside the house and the matter becomes a political argument. What the narrative is interested in is not innocence but proportion: the film asks whether a family losing everything over five shillings is justified, and gives no firm answer. The trial is never shown. The court scenes are left outside the narrative; everything is discussed in the drawing room. The sister's line matters. Catherine works for women's suffrage and continues the case for a different reason than her father's. The source is Terence Rattigan's play; the play itself came out of a case that really happened at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nigel Hawthorne, Rebecca Pidgeon, Jeremy Northam and Gemma Jones are in the cast. David Mamet adapted and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes period drama that rests on talk. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a courtroom film; the narrative deliberately does not show the trial and the pace is low.