Written and directed by Paul Morrison. A story about 11-year-old David Wiseman (Sam Smith), a Jewish boy in South London in 1960 who is mad for cricket but a hopeless player. He avidly collects cricket player trading cards, has a bat signed by the entire Surrey team and a full set of whites for playing in. His parents, Ruth and Victor Wiseman (played by Emily Woof and Stanley Townsend) are immigrants from Poland. At least that’s my guess; I’d originally thought them German, till Ruth teasingly refers to Victor as “you Polack.” Lilian (Yasmin Paige) is David’s younger sister, a smart-mouthed cello player whom we don’t see or get to know much of.
The Wisemans, being Jewish, are the target of their neighborhood’s bigotry until the neighbors on their left move out and a Jamaican family, the Samuels, moves in. Assuming that the Wisemans’ landlord must be Jewish, too, the ringleading bigot, a Mrs. Wilson, buttonholes Mrs. Wiseman, importuning her to complain to the landlord and try to get the Samuels evicted.
On top of being “darkies,” the Samuels excite much gossip and headshaking by digging up the roses and erecting a cricket net in their back garden. David is at once entranced, ignoring his parents’ instructions to be polite but not to mix with the Samuels family. After watching Dennis Samuels (Delroy Lindo) and his daughter Judy (Leonie Elliott) bowl and bat to each other, he more or less invites himself over to join them, all the more pitifully by turning up in full kit. Dennis and Judy soon realize he’s not the player he wants to be, but Dennis kindly takes him in hand and gives him some real coaching. Over time David gains enough skill to be allowed to play for his school’s team, instead of being relegated to keeping score, and he and Judy become good friends.
So caught up in his cricketing, David is rather oblivious to what else is happening around him. The rest of the neighborhood is incensed that the Wisemans allow David to be so friendly with the Samuels. Ruth Wiseman, often neglected by her good but work-distracted husband, attempts to turn to Dennis for physical and romantic attention (he wisely declines). The Wilsons and/or their grandson harass both the Wisemans and the Samuels, leaving them threatening notes, making menacing gestures. Victor Wiseman keeps the threatening notes to himself and decides to move the family out of the neighborhood. Then David himself falls prey to peer pressure and snobbery. He’s given a birthday party to which all his schoolfellows are invited, but when Judy comes to wish him happy birthday as well, he turns her away, afraid of ruining his new-found acceptance among the other boys.
The tensions and ill feelings come to a head when the Wilsons’ grandson sets fire to the Samuels’ house and cricket netting. When even the police refuse to believe that the fire wasn’t just some careless accident on the Samuels’ part, Victor speaks up. It’s a short speech (“You should be ashamed. We all should be ashamed. Ask those two about their grandson.”) but it seems to shame the neighbors into being more accepting.
There are many films about having to grow up and face tough issues like prejudice; this one feels as though it’s merely skimming the surface of things that could be said. Technically speaking, the sound is uneven—the dialog is so low it’s hard to follow much of the time, while the film’s music blares too loudly. Sam Smith is wonderfully oblivious but not a lot else. Leonie Elliott and Yasmin Paige are more natural. Stanley Townsend is likeable as the well-intentioned breadwinner and Emily Woof as a wife and mother torn by wanting to protect her family yet be accepting of fellow immigrants and seek greater fulfillment for herself. Delroy Lindo always has an arresting presence. Over all, I enjoyed this movie and its cast well enough, but it seemed clumsy and ineffectual a lot of the time, just touching on the points it intended to make. I could see it trying to manipulate how I ought to be reacting.