Hansard informs me that, at 3:40pm on 8 June 1940, after William Edward Woolley, esquire, for the County of York (West Riding) had been sworn in, and after the Monmouthshire and South Wales Employers' Mutual Indemnity Society Limited bill had had its first reading, Winston Churchill rose in Parliament to speak under the jurisprudence of 'War Situation'. His statement, lasting 34 minutes, concludes with the famous quotation that... 'We shall fight on the beaches...on the landing grounds...in the fields and in the streets...in the hills. We shall never surrender.' They were stirring, if not chilling, words for the fact they dared to address what might, or ought, happen in the occasion that there should actually be some form of German military presence in the country. The advice was clear: keep fighting; fight in streets, fields and wherever you find them - keep fighting. Drag it out to its last breath.
In the event, mainland Britain was never actually invaded by the Nazi war machine. A small part of it, however, in the form of the Channel Islands, was. But what happened? Not very much in the form of resistance, in actual fact. Begrudging acceptance, you might say, is as bad as it gets in "Another Mother's Son" - the sabotaging of treacherous communique in a local post office about as guerrilla as it comes.
Admittedly, and perhaps to my shame, I couldn't tell you very much about this particular chapter in the United Kingdom's history: the arrival of the Nazis, via France, on the various islands which make up the Channel Islands in 1940 and their consequent occupation. Having seen the film, I am none-especially wiser as to the raw essence of the history behind such an occupation, but the film does well to steer you towards understanding what life MAY have been like. The project, based on a true story, is in essence competently made. It did not bring me to tears in the way it thought it was going to, but I am happy that I found it and learnt about the people and deeds therein. The nicest I can be is that "Another Mother's Son" is functional if not televisual, but that it pales in comparison to many others of its stock such as "Soldier of Orange" or "The Pianist". It also stars Ronan Keating, who not only gets to act but seems to have written especially for him a sequence whereby he is afforded the opportunity to sing.
It is the spring of 1942 and, with the War broadly speaking still confined to Europe and Africa, and, I don't suppose, going especially well for Britain, we are on Jersey, which the Germans occupy. Their arrival has seen them cull the population of Englishmen - not through any especially nasty means, but through deportation: the strict observance of the rule that anybody not born on the island is sent to Germany as a prisoner of war. There are, however, a few curious exemptions: anybody in a management position, for example, is spared the fate. Two sisters in their fifties by the names of Louisa (Jenny Seagrove) and Ivy (Amanda Abbington) run a small convenience store, selling mostly food. Harry (Keating), is their brother. Louisa, the eldest, has already lost her son to the conflict; life under rationing is tough.
The Germans seem to reserve their real hatred for the Russians, with whom they have only just gone to war, scorching in the process their 1939 non-aggression pact. As one set of prisoners of war go out, another lot come in: Soviets captured on the Eastern front are shipped in to work, essentially as slaves, in a local quarry. The plot thickens when one of them, Bulgarian actor Julian Kostov's young Red Army pilot Fyodor, escapes and eventually ambles into Louisa's somewhat diametrically opposed universe - refusing to turn him in, of course, she decides to house him and hide him in spite of the danger, in the process essentially allowing him to become the eponymous son wherein, since she had no control over her blood relation's death in the conflict, might be able to save the life of another young man here.
Appreciating the film comes a lot easier than loving it; it has, to its credit, a certain vibe about it which calls to mind one of the better wartime stories of opposites stuck in the confines of a remote cottage, in "Goodnight, Mr. Tom": a made for television piece which worked more consistently within those parameters. Jersey, having seemingly escaped the might of the German war machine in ways France; Poland and the Netherlands did not, is a curious setting for what is in essence a resistance thriller, as well as a war film, and yet at once plays out as neither of these things. Fyodor is stuck inside, hiding. If he is found, he is likely shot, as too will be Louisa. It is a simple enough premise, but it remains curiously grounded throughout its runtime as characters go through the motions around it. The Germans, seemingly ignorant that one of their prisoners has even escaped, refrain from launching an all-out manhunt on the tiny Bailiwick and are never suspicious that one of the hate-filled natives of the island might pluck up the courage to conspire against them.
I read after the film that the director, a certain Christopher Menaul, is indeed more synonymous with directing material for television broadcast, and it shows here; the aesthetic is very much one of point-and-shoot and the film lacks a cinematic quality, with too many edits for what is ultimately an extraordinarily pared down story about people stuck in houses or shops or post-offices looking exasperated under exasperated circumstances. He brings to life a tale of courage, or perhaps two tales of courage, admirably but it's played very safe and there is ultimately too much bite lacking for it to be brilliant.
