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THE WINSLOW BOY Send This Review to a Friend
David Mamet, with his playwright's sense of drama, has taken Terence Rattigan's 1946 play, already made into a film in 1948 by Anthony Asquith, and emerged with a powerful, nearly impeccable new screen version. This time Mamet has kept the story even more rooted to the family struggle to prove a boy innocent and to the parallel romance that develops.
"The Winslow Boy," based on a real case that aroused controversy in England in 1910, concerns Ronnie, a young naval cadet accused of forging another boy's signature to a postal order and cashing it. Expelled, the lad (Guy Edwards) insists on his innocence and his father (Nigel Hawthorne) believing him, determinedly embarks upon a legal fight for vindication. The battle brings the family to financial ruin and a crisis for his engaged daughter (Rebecca Pidgeon) whose intended (Aden Gillett), under pressure from his father, wants the Winslows to drop the case.
The cause--one family against the mighty--seems hopeless until a renowned conservative barrister (Jeremy Northam) becomes involved. Catherine, the Winslow daughter, who is active in the suffragette cause, considers him a political opponent on issues that matter to her. As you might guess, each has a lot to learn about the other.
Mamet includes some of the legal fight, but cuts out most of the courtroom scenes found in the earlier film, helping to focus more on the gripping family trauma. Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife in real life) gives an intelligent, quietly emotional but spirited performance as Catherine and handsome Jeremy Northam is elegantly superb as Sir Robert Morton, the barrister. It's to Mamet's credit that he keeps the feelings that develop between Catherine and Sir Robert exquisitely understated. This gentle love story has more impact than you'll find in a dozen heavy-breathers.
The high-level acting is a show in itself. Hawthorne makes Arthur Winslow, the father, a stern but warm, family-oriented man who nonetheless is willing to sacrifice for principle. Gemma Jones as his wife conveys anger and frustration at having to go along with his stubbornness amid doubts as to whether principle or ego is her husband's driving force. Matthew Pidgeon, Rebecca's brother, is very believable as Dickie Winslow, the older son, an indifferent student who has to leave Oxford when his tuition money is diverted to the fight.
"The Winslow Boy" is a totally engrossing drama set in a milieu different from most Mamet projects. He has succeeded impressively and given the story, now filmed in color, a fresh look without distorting its period requirements. He, as well as Rattigan and Asquith, tampered with the actual case, which also involved class and ethnic prejudice, as the real cadet, George Archer-Shee, was Irish. The fictional drama focuses mainly on a proud but suffering family's battle with the powerful British Admiralty and its defenders in order to "let right be done."
After seeing this new version, you might want to rent the Asquith film and make comparisons. The cast in that one, Robert Donat as Morton, Margaret Leighton as Catherine and Cedric Hardwicke as Winslow, the father, was excellent. There were many fine touches not in the new film. But Mamet's film stands brilliantly on its own, was worth the remake and is among the best films of 1999. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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