"Good night, John-Boy. Good night, Elizabeth. And good night, daddy. Good night, son. And good night, mama. Good night, Mary Ellen. Good night, Jim Bob." Even if you've never watched a single moment of the classic TV show "The Waltons," the impact the series has had on television continues on even to this day. With the series' roots stemming back all the way to one of the most hated episodes of "The Twilight Zone" in history, references to "The Waltons" have extended all the way to films like 2016's "The Nice Guys," where Matt Bomber's villainous Dr. Malek is given the code name "John Boy" as he shares a similar facial birthmark to John-Boy actor Richard Thomas.
Created by Earl Hamner Jr., "The Waltons" centered on the titular family in rural Virginia during the Great Depression and World War II, based on Hamner Jr.'s book "Spencer's Mountain." With a...
Created by Earl Hamner Jr., "The Waltons" centered on the titular family in rural Virginia during the Great Depression and World War II, based on Hamner Jr.'s book "Spencer's Mountain." With a...
- 11/26/2023
- by SlashFilm Staff
- Slash Film
It's rare that a mainstream film tackles spiritual themes, so this directorial debut by "The Full Monty" screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (with co-director Bille Eltringham) deserves credit on that score alone.
The tale of a farming family touched by tragedy in the Yorkshire hills, "The Darkest Light" is an uncompromising project that unfortunately never gathers sufficient dramatic force. Although it boasts excellent performances from leads Stephen Dillane and Kerry Fox, the film faces a dicey commercial future. It was recently showcased at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Dillane and Fox play Tom and Sue, a couple struggling to make ends meet and with the leukemia suffered by their young son Matthew (Jason Walton). They also have a feisty 11-year-old girl, Catherine (Keri Arnold), whose confusion about her brother's illness results in various forms of anti-social behavior, including scratching the paint on his new bicycle and mistreating Uma (Kavita Sungha), a young Indian girl at her school.
When her father marches Catherine over to Uma's house to apologize, the two girls strike up a fast friendship, with Catherine fascinated by such things as the dot on Uma's forehead and the exotic clothes and food of the household. One day, when the pair are traipsing around the countryside, specifically at an abandoned firing range, they spot a bright light that Catherine later claims was a vision of the Virgin Mary. Soon the entire village believes that a religious event has transpired. Meanwhile, Tom and Sue find themselves increasingly beleaguered, both by an epidemic of foot and mouth disease that ravages their animal stock and by Matthew's physical deterioration.
Although the script touches on serious themes, it does so in an unfocused and too leisurely paced fashion that lacks impact. Several individual scenes are quietly touching, such as when Tom shaves his head in sympathy for his son's hair loss to chemotherapy. The delineation of the girls' increasingly strong friendship, too, is sensitively conveyed. But the film's attempts to explore the nature of religious hysteria aren't particularly well developed, and at a certain point the overall somberness of the piece seems forced, as if screenwriter Beaufoy was primarily concerned with eliminating any vestige of "Full Monty"-style humor.
Dillane and Fox deliver excellent performances that strongly convey the depths of their characters' anguish, and the child performers, particularly Arnold as the precocious Catherine, are refreshingly unaffected. The location photography fully captures the beauty as well as the despair of the Yorkshire countryside.
THE DARKEST LIGHT
G2 Films
Credits: Directors: Simon Beaufoy, Bille Eltringham; Screenwriter: Simon Beaufoy; Producer: Mark Blaney; Director of photography: Mary Forbrother; Editor: Ewa J. Lind; Production designer: Chris Townsend. Cast: Tom: Stephen Dillane; Sue: Kerry Fox; Catherine: Keri Arnold; Matthew: Jason Walton; Uma: Kavita Sungha. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 94 minutes.
The tale of a farming family touched by tragedy in the Yorkshire hills, "The Darkest Light" is an uncompromising project that unfortunately never gathers sufficient dramatic force. Although it boasts excellent performances from leads Stephen Dillane and Kerry Fox, the film faces a dicey commercial future. It was recently showcased at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Dillane and Fox play Tom and Sue, a couple struggling to make ends meet and with the leukemia suffered by their young son Matthew (Jason Walton). They also have a feisty 11-year-old girl, Catherine (Keri Arnold), whose confusion about her brother's illness results in various forms of anti-social behavior, including scratching the paint on his new bicycle and mistreating Uma (Kavita Sungha), a young Indian girl at her school.
When her father marches Catherine over to Uma's house to apologize, the two girls strike up a fast friendship, with Catherine fascinated by such things as the dot on Uma's forehead and the exotic clothes and food of the household. One day, when the pair are traipsing around the countryside, specifically at an abandoned firing range, they spot a bright light that Catherine later claims was a vision of the Virgin Mary. Soon the entire village believes that a religious event has transpired. Meanwhile, Tom and Sue find themselves increasingly beleaguered, both by an epidemic of foot and mouth disease that ravages their animal stock and by Matthew's physical deterioration.
Although the script touches on serious themes, it does so in an unfocused and too leisurely paced fashion that lacks impact. Several individual scenes are quietly touching, such as when Tom shaves his head in sympathy for his son's hair loss to chemotherapy. The delineation of the girls' increasingly strong friendship, too, is sensitively conveyed. But the film's attempts to explore the nature of religious hysteria aren't particularly well developed, and at a certain point the overall somberness of the piece seems forced, as if screenwriter Beaufoy was primarily concerned with eliminating any vestige of "Full Monty"-style humor.
Dillane and Fox deliver excellent performances that strongly convey the depths of their characters' anguish, and the child performers, particularly Arnold as the precocious Catherine, are refreshingly unaffected. The location photography fully captures the beauty as well as the despair of the Yorkshire countryside.
THE DARKEST LIGHT
G2 Films
Credits: Directors: Simon Beaufoy, Bille Eltringham; Screenwriter: Simon Beaufoy; Producer: Mark Blaney; Director of photography: Mary Forbrother; Editor: Ewa J. Lind; Production designer: Chris Townsend. Cast: Tom: Stephen Dillane; Sue: Kerry Fox; Catherine: Keri Arnold; Matthew: Jason Walton; Uma: Kavita Sungha. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 94 minutes.
- 9/28/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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