Home Fires Burning is one of the best novels I have ever read, and I'm glad that the novel's author - Robert Inman - actually wrote the teleplay. That way he got to preserve as much of the original as possible - which lamentably isn't much. In today's market, it would have been properly done as a mini-series, making good use of the rest of the book. Most of complete story occurs before the action on the screen and is vital to the character development of every character. Having to start the narrative with the airplane stunt gives the whole story a much lighter tone.
To be fair, this film would have been better titled, "Incidents from Home Fires Burning", because it strings together a set of occurrences which would have made far better sense if the viewer already know what had come before. The characters, as drawn, have little depth. The events, which here come out of nowhere, would seem quite expected. The relationships that brought them to this point could reveal so much.
However, in television, you don't get to tell the story you want, you tell the story you've got. There are brilliant actors comprising this cast - not a weak portrayal in the bunch. But very few would have done the real story credibly. Too old, mostly. And that's the problem here: Too many lose ends that - even superficially - could never have been explained away with this cast.
It is hard to review this production, knowing what could/should have been. This story just can't br compressed into an hour and a half. The bottom line is that it really doesn't work. Some stories just shouldn't be told if they can't be told well. This one isn't told well.
To be fair, this film would have been better titled, "Incidents from Home Fires Burning", because it strings together a set of occurrences which would have made far better sense if the viewer already know what had come before. The characters, as drawn, have little depth. The events, which here come out of nowhere, would seem quite expected. The relationships that brought them to this point could reveal so much.
However, in television, you don't get to tell the story you want, you tell the story you've got. There are brilliant actors comprising this cast - not a weak portrayal in the bunch. But very few would have done the real story credibly. Too old, mostly. And that's the problem here: Too many lose ends that - even superficially - could never have been explained away with this cast.
It is hard to review this production, knowing what could/should have been. This story just can't br compressed into an hour and a half. The bottom line is that it really doesn't work. Some stories just shouldn't be told if they can't be told well. This one isn't told well.