PRIVATE PEACEFUL FILM REVIEW QUOTES                         (click on poster for Private Peaceful website)

GENERAL REVIEWS

A beautiful film … few other cinematic efforts are so well constructed and shrewdly characterised ****

Derek Malcolm – Evening Standard

The grime and the grind of the period is expertly re-created …the performances are admirable and the intentions unimpeachable

Radio Times

…this gritty yet handsome adaptation… retains the clear-eyed observations of the original (and) fleshes out the novel’s atmospheric battle scenes in fine style

Kate Stables – Sight & Sound

Many of the elements that worked for Steven Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’ are present and correct in WW1 drama ‘Private Peaceful’

Charles Gant – Variety

…it’s nicely done, sweet and moving

Empire

…genuinely suspenseful

Quentin Falk – Saga Magazine

Another must-see film from the author of War Horse … A potent WW1 drama

Glamour

A truly beautiful film that will touch your soul

Woman & Home

…a fittingly poignant big screen treatment

Little White Lies

…through the film's simplicity, fine performances and well-written screenplay, Private Peaceful is a delicate and warm portrayal of love for family, for friends, and for one's country

Cine-Vue

…paints a deeply intense portrait of a rural community and how war tears a society apart

Morning Star

... it's so moving, in a thoroughly British manner: it has the power to make you cry... a finely-delivered film, with some nice touches of humour amongst the serious messages about love, war and family, all contributing to form an absorbing, thought-provoking piece of cinema****

Royal Air Force News

…there is much to enjoy

FilmJuice

…it's well-made, handsomely photographed, well-acted, thoroughly researched and the battle sequences are well edited

MovieMuser

STORY:

…this moving drama

Sunday Mirror

…this modest, heartfelt movie

Peter Bradshaw – Guardian

…a finely-told story

Cine-Vue

…a moving portrayal of family loyalty and love in the face of the horror and hypocrisy of war

FilmJuice

…a film that is unflinching in its account of the genocide of a generation

Little White Lies

The story is really good

CBBC Newsround

FOR CHILDREN/FAMILIES:

O’Connor directs with a firm hand and children will learn valuable lessons from it

Philip French – Observer

Pat O'Connor's film serves well as an introduction to the first world war for intelligent children

Sunday Times

…destined to be shown in school history lessons

Independent on Sunday

…this is an old-fashioned family drama that keeps its head high from start to finish ****

Alison Rowat – Glasgow Herald

A lovely children’s film

Kate Muir – Times

Unusually for a family film, we’re steadily fed pointed political insights into the flagrant abuses of the pre-war rural poor

Kate Stables – Sight & Sound

PERFORMANCES:

MacKay and O’Connell are both outstanding, as is Maxine Peake as their long-suffering but brave mother, while Griffiths makes you laugh and shudder at the pompous colonel ****

Derek Malcolm – Evening Standard

…the lads are spot-on: young Mackay is effectively touching and bristling; O’Connell hints at Next Big Thing charisma

Trevor Johnston – Time Out

Veteran director Pat O’Connor (‘Dancing at Lughnasa’) is well served by his lead actors: Mackay has a naturally soulful quality, deftly hinting at inner hurt, and O’Connell has Charlie’s cheeky grin and natural charisma down pat

Charles Gant – Variety

Jack O'Connell (Skins) and George MacKay are excellent as the brothers in arms ****

Alison Rowat – Glasgow Herald

The performances are all splendid, especially by the young romantic triangle as well as the three lesser-known, but equally fine, trio of actors (Samuel Bottomley, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Izzy Meikle-Small) who play even younger versions of the principals

Quentin Falk – Saga Magazine

Mackay and O'Connell are totally compelling to watch in this performance-driven drama

Morning Star

…a gloriously unpleasant John Lynch

Kate Stables – Sight & Sound

... John Lynch dominates the screen with his blistering portrayal of the brutal Sergeant Hanley...with strong support from some of our finest actors, including Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour and Maxine Peake****

Royal Air Force News

…some seriously fine performances…Jack O'Connell's performance is wonderfully British…George Mackay gives a sterling performance…an elegant and fine performance from rising talent, Alexandra Roach

Cine-Vue

Jack O'Connell's searingly charismatic performance

FilmJuice

The two young boys (Samuel Bottomley and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin) are good, as are their adult counterparts, particularly young Jack, who shares the same cheeky smile with his late adult self. The very versatile Peake is strong as their feisty but struggling widowed mother, there’s a nice cameo for De La Tour as the family’s grumpy aunt and Griffiths is suitably gung ho as the Colonel

Close-UpFilm

DIRECTOR:

…director Pat O’Connor has delivered a mostly faithful and moving account of Morpurgo’s fine book ****

Derek Malcolm – Evening Standard

Veteran director Pat O’Connor (Circle of Friends) shows his old-school expertise in the charming country childhood sequences

Trevor Johnston – Time Out

O’Connor confronts the real questions about the human heart beating within

Little White Lies

SCREENWRITER:

…praise should go to Simon Reade’s shrewd screenplay ****

Derek Malcolm – Evening Standard

Simon Reade generously finds room for an array of supporting characters

Charles Gant – Variety

DOP:

Jerzy Zielinski keeps the film’s palette keenly attuned to its moods, warm country hues giving way to muddy greys on the Western Front

Kate Stables – Sight & Sound

COMPOSER:

…succeeds in hitting the right emotional notes, with a handy assist from Rachel Portman’s score

Charles Gant – Variety

Derek Malcolm - Evening Standard

Critic Rating ****

Beautiful film of two brothers blighted by war, love and loss based on a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo

Ridiculous though it would be to do so, if you were to compare this adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel of the same name with Steven Spielberg’s grandiose and sentimental version of the author’s more famous War Horse, you’d likely prefer this more intimate British period piece.

Private Peaceful (George MacKay), accused of disobeying orders on the Western Front, reviews his life in flashback before facing the firing squad. He is one of two brothers (Jack O’Connell is the elder) who work for a pittance on land owned by a patriotic ex-colonel (Richard Griffiths). They are the sons of a forester who dies in a tree-felling accident that the younger brother believes is his fault.

The colonel is a member of the old order, the brothers are part of the new, questioning the absolute entitlement of the gentry. They both fall for the same girl (Alexandra Roach), and the elder brother, Big Joe, gets her pregnant, which makes him less inclined to volunteer for the war. They are married by the local clergyman who refuses to ring the bells for them. When Joe eventually goes to war, it is as much to protect Thomas, his more timid sibling, as it is to fight the Hun.

If Morpurgo wrote his book for young people, using broad strokes to announce both its social themes and its hatred of an inhumane and costly war, O’Connor seems to have made his film go a bit beyond the telling of the brutal truth to the uninitiated, keeping it beautifully in period throughout.

MacKay and O’Connell are both outstanding, as is Maxine Peake as their long-suffering but brave mother, while Griffiths makes you laugh and shudder at the pompous colonel, just the right side of caricature.

The early sequences of a hard country life, dominated by landowners circa 1900, are achieved without the usual pastoral glow, and the war scenes in the trenches, given the constraints of the budget, are painted with proper force. It’s true that we’ve been here before but few other cinematic efforts are so well constructed and shrewdly characterised right down to the smaller parts (praise should go to Simon Reade’s shrewd screenplay).

Essentially conventional in his approach, director Pat O’Connor has delivered a mostly faithful and moving account of Morpurgo’s fine book.

Russell Cook - Cine-Vue.com

Pat O'Connor's Private Peaceful (2012) is a finely-told story of two young brothers, battling the ups n downs of childhood, the confusion and difficulties in adolescence and two of the more troubling things that could happen during the life of a young man: fighting a war for your country and falling in love. With some seriously fine performances and a simple but effective visual style that helps establish the film as a believable period piece, O'Connor's film is a solid adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel.

Set in the Devonshire countryside during the years leading up to the First World War, Private Peaceful is a classic rites of passage story about Charlie and Tommo Peaceful and the exuberance and pain of their teenage love for the same girl, along with the pressures of their feudal family life, the horrors and folly of the ensuing war and the ultimate price of courage and cowardice.

It's immediately apparent that O'Connor was shooting for a classic British feel, both visually and tonally with this film, and by juxtaposing the difficulties faced by a working class family amidst a sparse and rolling English countryside, with the lives of an older, well-to-do generation of aristocratic war veterans, a sense of injustice is established as a subtext to the film's 'rites du passage' overtone.

As older brother Charlie, Jack O'Connell's performance is wonderfully British and acutely in tune with the vernacular of an early 20th century teenage boy. He plays the strong, self-assured, nurturing and loving brother with genuine effect and subtlety, as his character serves as both role model and antagonist to younger sibling, Tommo, played by George Mackay, who also gives a sterling performance, providing an effective compliment and contrast to O'Connell's Charlie. Providing the love dilemma for the two brothers, and much more than that, is an elegant and fine performance from rising talent, Alexandra Roach, who plays the endearing tom-boy, Molly Monks.

It's obvious what O'Connor was trying to achieve and through the film's simplicity, fine performances and well-written screenplay, Private Peaceful is a delicate and warm portrayal of love for family, for friends, and for one's country, without the usual façade of over-exuberant jingoism.