My Boy Jack

Masterpieces are rare, but every so often a film such as this comes along and delivers.

The story is of the son of the famous writer Rudyard Kipling during the first world war. Jingosim is the main subject of this story and Rudyard Kipling transformational arc on his views of sending his son to war.

Despite this being made for TV its at a standard that puts many blockbusters to shame, The screenplay is impeccable and the performances astounding. David Haig as Rudyard Kipling is perfect. Daniel Radcliffe despite being the famous face of Harry Potter makes the role his own as Jack. And Kim Cattrall proves shes more than being the slutty one from Sex And The City.

Thought provoking and emotional without being Cliché i feel i cannot give this film anything but a perfect score, a truly beautiful film.

I hope this film receives the attention it deserves.

I basically agree with the consensus of the critics. This is another good, solid, made-for-TV production that leaves little to be desired.

Well produced, well filmed and well acted, finally a movie with a script, with intelligent, meaningful dialog. What a welcome surprise! My compliments to David Haig, not only for the aforementioned script, but also for his acting, which was nothing short of excellent. His Kipling is a real, living creature, we can see him, we can hear him, but we can also feel him, his pain is real, when he hurts, it is almost as if we do too.

If there is a flaw to this film, it is only that of not having dared to dig even deeper into the emotions of the main characters, which would undoubtedly have made it a much longer movie, but in my opinion also a better one.

I have been viewing Masterpiece Theatre for many years and I have trouble thinking of one episode that surpasses the excellence of this production.

The main actors all give great performances in this story of how Rudyard Kipling, poet laureate and a member of an important government war committee, persuaded the authorities to enlist his son Jack despite failing two health examinations because of his poor eyesight. The rest of the movie deals with the dilemma that never seemed to cross Kipling's mind: what moral responsibility would he bear if anything happened to his much-loved son?

As we see in the run-up to the declaration of war, Kipling, played by David Haig, was a fervent supporter of taking on the "Huns". In the commentary following the film, we learn that he never served his country on the battlefield. Instead, he put his expectations on his son Jack. The scenes from the Great War tell the horror of the conditions in the rat-infested trenches as soldiers coped with open wounds in the rain and the mud. Then cutaway to the Kipling home in pastoral English setting...the contrast is vivid.

Kipling's wife (Kim Cattrall) and daughter (Carey Mulligan)are extremely upset at the prospect of John "Jack" Kipling going off to war. Daniel Radcliffe performs the role of the dutiful son who also proved to be more than a capable leader of the young men in his charge. Martin McCann, who plays the soldier Bowe who saw the younger Kipling die in battle, gives an extraordinary performance when he visits the Kipling estate to tell the story of Jack's death.

A very noteworthy scene takes place at the end of the movie when Kipling visits George V, the reigning monarch, and a personal friend. In this scene, the King expresses his sympathy to Kipling and then mentions that his own son recently died. This is a reference to the youngest child of George V and Queen Mary, who was an epileptic, and died suddenly following a seizure. This event was treated quietly by the press at the time. However, whether or not this meeting happened, it is an interesting side-bar to the movie, with the King and his poet laureate sharing their grief.

I have always been interested in the story of Jack Kipling from the time I read a newspaper article about how a Canadian who worked for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was able to locate the burial plot of Jack Kipling towards the end of the 20th century, many decades after he died. This was something the Kipling family had tried in vain to find.

For me, this movie adds an extra dimension to that story and to the ongoing cinematic treatment of a war that is now almost 100 years ago.

As a Kipling fan from the age of 8, 50 years and more ago now, I was knocked out by "My Boy Jack." David Haig, as writer and actor, is beyond brilliance, and though I found Daniel Radcliffe a bit stiff and modern, he too was excellent.

Kim Cattrall: surprisingly good. But I was totally distracted by her American pretending to be English pretending to be American bizarre accent. Let her use her natural speech (and yes, I know she was born and spent time in England) or else hire a good dialogue coach.

Though the whole production was gorgeous (Bateman's!) and moving in its interrelationships, the bookending of the scenes with friends King George V and Rud just tore my heart out. The King having just lost a "boy Jack" of his own (young Prince John, an epileptic, subject of another fantastic Masterpiece series, "The Lost Prince", some years ago), Rudyard recites the poem he wrote for his Jack. I sobbed through the whole recital, and was still weeping when I went to sleep a few hours later. Staggeringly wondrous. And cathartic in the sense in which all tragedies should be. Fine, fine work by all concerned.

I don't remember why I added this to my DVR; sometimes I go on a PBS binge and record all kinds of "edifying" material. From the little summary on the DVR screen, I expected a family-conflict drama mixed in with some heroic war scenes and rousing patriotism.

It did have rousing patriotism, family conflict, and heroic war scenes, yet it was not at all what I expected. When the film finished I could see past and future echoes of this family, of all families who send a son or daughter to war. Somewhere in America today there are parents just like Mr. and Mrs. Kipling in the film, and there have been for generations past.

This is a movie to see when your everyday grind has sapped your humanity.