On DVD: Radcliffe Trades Potter For 'My Boy Jack'

For some people, simply mentioning the words "historical drama from the BBC" causes eyes to glaze over. When it comes to My Boy Jack, appearing on DVD and the PBS series Masterpiece this week, "No, no, no," you assure them. "This is a movie about British author Rudyard Kipling and his son who goes off to fight in World War I." "Wait," they reply, "you mean the Jungle Book guy? Gunga Din? Okay." And then mention that Daniel Radcliffe plays his son, John "Jack" Kipling, and something interesting happens. "Harry Potter? Harry potter is in that? Can I borrow it?" At least, that's how most of my conversations explaining My Boy Jack have gone.

My Boy Jack is a great little film, a heartbreaking tale of a man whose belief in going to war was so strong that he was willing to send his own son into battle -- the horrors of 1914's "war to end all wars" -- to fight it. Trouble is, Jack isn't fit for combat. He's underage for starters. His eyesight is so bad he keeps getting rejected from every branch of the military. And Jack's American-born mother Carrie (Kim Cattrall, Sex in the City) remains clear-headed enough to see that her husband's patriotic zeal is unecessarily endangering their son. The first half of the film is entirely about trying to find Jack's way into military service -- the son trying to make the father proud and the father equally as blind as his son (so to speak) to the haphazard ways they are going about getting him in.

David Haig pulls double duty both by writing the script and playing the famous elder Kipling, doing the latter in a wonderfully loving rendition filled with as much doom and gloom as he has childhood glee about the many stories he shares with others. Rather than attack Jack's father by simply portraying him as a war hawk who pushed his son headlong into one of the bloodiest wars ever fought, My Boy Jack straddles a fine line. It goes down the road of holding Kipling responsible, but at the same time shows how very human his decisions are.

Daniel Radcliffe is equally wonderful in his portrayal, readily stepping out of the Potter mold and taking on a role that requires a transformation that allows you to forget within the first five minutes anything involving brooms or magic. And while he is not the star (Haig is), Radcliffe gets more than enough screen time to satisfy the cravings of those who will seek this out. Let's face it, the reason that this is jumping the pond is entirely due to Radcliffe, and if that's why you choose to seek this out, you will be more than happy with the result. Radcliffe proves here that he'll have a career after Potter, and I, for one, will be more than happy to keep an eye out for that.

This DVD is pretty light on the features, though the two tha are on the disc are worth watching. The first gives us six additional minutes of scenes, all of them solid and entertaining, but cut for understandable reasons. The second is a series of interviews with the cast about the making of the movie, which forms a great discussion on the meaning of the work and how the actors wrestled with the characters' emotions. All in all, despite being thin, they are a nice addendum to a solid film.

Grade: B

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