Director Bille Eltringham, Simon Beaufoy
Stars Stephen Dillane, Kerry Fox, Keri Arnold, Kavita Sungha
Certificate n/a
Running time 94 mins
Made UK, 1999

THIS emotional drama is set in the often beautiful, sometimes harrowing landscape of rural Yorkshire. Brought up on a remote farm, twelve-year-old Catherine is torn between feelings of jealousy and protectiveness for her eight-year-old brother Matthew who suffers from leukemia. Into the local village, and into Catherine's life, comes Uma, a twelve year old Hindu girl. After some naive, and comical-in-its-innocence racism, the girls become friends.

On a walk on the moors the three children break into a derelict Ministry of Defence firing range. While there, the girls are consumed in an inexplicable vision of blinding light. It is the three different attempts to explain the ethereal phenomenon that heralds the mysterious theme of the film.

Catherine believes it is a sign that Matthew will get better, Matthew in turn believes that it is a sign from the Virgin Mary. Uma and her family believe it is a Hindu message of impending disaster.

Then Foot and Mouth disease breaks out on the farm and in addition to coming to terms with Matthew's leukemia, Catherine's parents face bankruptcy as their entire herd is destroyed and the farm quarantined.

At the heart of the film is the theme of people's need for faith and the many different forms it takes. Masses parade through the quarantined farm, desperate for their own miracle, uncaring about the spread of the disease and the ruin it brings to the village. As those around find comfort in the vision, Tom, Catherine's Father, played poignantly by Stephen Dillane, slips deeper into loss and isolation.

The film tugs tirelessly on our emotions, but ends on a message of hope.

Oscar Black