Handsomely shot and very sweetly directed by Catherine Morshead, The Railway Children is a more realistic version of the old Pollyanna story, with less saccharine but a similar attitude about the basic goodness of people. The central heroine, young Bobbie (Roberta), is played by the beautiful Jemima Rooper (who the IMDB says just finished starring in an upcoming film version of Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder), and she's basically the 'Jo' character from Little Women, learning and growing the most. The kids find out why charity can be an insult coming and going, and that not everyone is willing to see past appearances and be friendly. But Bobbie's honest outgoing nature is sincere and disarming, and ultimately leads to a happy reconciliation that feels earned.

Director Morshead doesn't avoid the sentiment, but she keeps it under control. The episodic nature of the story has each new chapter initiated by something that happens when the kids are hanging around the railroad tracks - they take in a stranded Russian refugee searching for his family, prevent a train wreck, etc. Bobbie meets a potential love interest when a boarding school boy (JJ Feild) breaks his leg in a train tunnel, but all they do is exchange smiles and addresses.

The 'quaint and simple' times of rural England are somewhat idealized, as there's no real poverty to be seen anywhere, even though it's talked about. The kids aren't starving and have no medical needs, and nobody mentions school, so I guess they're going to be uneducated train-spotters forever. There's no crime, no homeless people, no obvious inequities. Mum gets some money by writing stories, ("A clever lady", says the stationmaster) and it's not hard to assume she's represents the author. Jenny Agutter makes her firm but vulnerable: she played Bobbie in the original show, to great acclaim. Dinah Sheridan (Breaking the Sound Barrier, The Mirror Crack'd) played Mrs. Waterbury in the original.

Unfortunately, some PC mouthpiece could make a case that either version of The Railway Children could encourage kids to hang out around railroad tracks, behavior which in reality claims many lives each year, and is no longer a great place to meet people, if it ever was. Modern trains aren't the beautiful green machines seen here. For that matter, why railroad tycoon Richard Attenborough rides the tail car of the 9:15 every day seems rather odd. In the context of the story, it's no big problem.

The telefilm is presented in a handsome letterboxed (but flat) transfer; I wonder if this was originally shot on 16mm? If it ever had original titles, they've been jettisoned for the Masterpiece Theater format, complete with host, with the only credits shoehorned in at the end and almost outnumbered by American public television credits. I hope that someone (Universal?) gets off their caboose and brings out the original The Railway Children, but this modern remake is very good on its own.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Railway Children rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Very Good
Sound: Very Good
Supplements: none
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: October 28, 2002