At almost=89, I cannot even recall whether I ever saw the H.B. Warner version of this classic father/son tale, but, belatedly, deaf and sans captions as well, I have stumbled onto this "modern" retelling, and I can say that I believe this has to be one "for the books," as in an authentic "classic." Richard Pasco's performance is MORE than "Oscar"-worthy, down to his aged makeup and his convincing senility, and the denouement is nothing short of "moving" and "cathartic," the raison-d'etre of drama and theater and film and telly, no? It surpasses mere sex, into the realm of simple humanity, a realm few if any manage to enter so tellingly. The rest is the subtlest and best of Brit mummery of the recent past, mature and assured and quietly assertive. Let the mobs celebrate the explosions and the digitally created images, I, for one, prefer these quiet meditations on the human condition, which is timeless, unless the idiots manage to blow ALL of us into vapor and not even dust.
