Saturday-Sunday: My Boy Jack

I was at the local library yesterday, and I figured that I had the entire weekend to myself, aside from seeing Red later today. So I picked up about six films that I haven't seen before, and I'll try to get to all of this in the next two days. I started with a small little television movie called My Boy Jack, which was overlooked by most and should've been up for some Emmy consideration. The film follows the relationship between Rudyard Kipling, the author of "The Jungle Book", and his war bound son Jack. It's a told tale, and we know how it will end from the start, but it's a great telling of it in a television context.

The performances in the film are outstanding for the most part. Playing the impatient and irritated John Kipling is Daniel Radcliffe, who truly excels within the role. He's been held back by the Harry Potter franchise for so long that some began to doubt that he'd have a career afterwords, and this certainly proves that he does. Although, I'll admit that that mustache is a little too smug. Playwright David Haig plays Rudyard Kipling with the sort of overbearing yet inspirational voice that pushed young men to enlist in WWI. Kim Cattrall has a small part as Jack's mother, but she doesn't really go above and beyond in the way she should.

However, the real hidden gem of this film is Carey Mulligan as Jack's loving and charismatic sister Elsie "Bird" Kipling. At the time this film was aired, An Education hadn't yet put Mulligan on the map, so it might have been easy for people to look over her. She's just a fun personality in this film, and a great deal of the important scenes and conversations given to Cattrall should have been given to her. These performances are what the film is about, even if the words spoken have such great meaning. If My Boy Jack was given a feature budget it could have definitely managed a great deal of adoration, and perhaps a bit of Oscar buzz for the actors. This isn't an easy film to find or rent on DVD, so your best bet for seeing it is probably the low quality version on YouTube.

B+