Beautiful, warm, lovely movie bringing back the child in you

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2005)

Based on reviews I read in advance, didn't expect much from this movie at all. In fact, I was expecting to sleep through part of the movie. But boy, was I wrong! There are these kind of movies, where after the first few shots you know you are going to love the rest of it. This was precisely the case. The parting of children from their mother in London was shot just beautiful, full of rich emotion, yet steering clear of being pathetic.
This remains the case for the rest of the film. Were it set into different background, I would probably sneeze at it, calling it pathetic and emotionally overcharged. But in conjunction with the beautiful tender story of small children living out their fantasies, it just all seems to work.
Performances by the child actors are very satisfactory with some and exceptional with others. While I didn't like both of the boy's acting as much, I found the young girls brilliant. Lucy in particular, being the youngest child, is basically driving the whole atmosphere of the movie and should have been maybe given even bigger space.
Overall, the movie left a very warm and cosy feeling in me, it made me sit at the edge of the seat and feel like a small child again. Very, very recommended.