When I was a wee lad one of the films that I watched, on a seemingly frequent basis, was The Railway Children. The vision of Jenny Agutter frantically flagging down an oncoming train will be forever embedded in my head. Now, Irish filmmaker Jason Figgis brings us Railway Children, which doesn't feature Jenny Agutter, or trains for that matter, but is set in a world where a virus has wiped out almost all of the adult population, leaving the children to fend for themselves. Why the title, Railway Children? Because one of the children, Evie, reads chapters of the E. Nesbitt book (upon which the aforementioned film was based) The Railway Children. You can check out the excellent looking trailer below, and I plan on having a review of the film itself over the coming weekend.
Synopsis
The world has been devastated by a virus that has decimated the adult population leaving small children and teenagers to roam the scarred landscape attempting to form some kind of society with dramatic and violent results. Sisters Evie (Catherine Wrigglesworth) and Fran (Emily Forster) have been travelling from town to town, gathering food and finding accommodation as they move from place to place. They keep to themselves; Evie reading chapters from E. Nesbit’s classic children's story ‘The Railway Children' to her little sister in an attempt to bring a sense of normality to their bleak existence - the novel was a favourite bedtime read as both girls were growing up; their mother (Jennifer Graham) their favourite reader. Finding overnight shelter in a derelict building, the sisters soon settle down only to be awoken by shouts from another room. Investigating, Evie witnesses the beating of a girl. She watches in horror until the mob leaves the building and the girl behind. Tentatively going to her aid, the girl whom Evie discovers is called Alice (Justine Rodgers) leads them to a large building at the edge of the city from where they hear singing coming from a basement window. They investigate . . .
. . .so begins a battle of wills between newcomers and those holding tenuous threads of a commune civilisation together; add to this further invidious threats from two of the girls’ darker pasts and an already tense atmosphere is soon to explode into violence.
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