GOODNIGHT, MISTER TOM (1999) *** John Thaw's just perfect for this character: Billygoat gruff exterior, not quite covering the grand and compassionate core. Thaw's historically expressive face is no less so covered in a deep winter's blizzard of a beard. There must have been more of it in his eyes than we'd realized. "Inspector Morse" will be a staple of BBC reruns for as long as anyone remembers Sherlock Holmes, probably, but it's really too bad that Thaw didn't leave us more dramatic roles outside that outstanding character. He was versatile, in the way that actors who only inflate their character with elements from inside can be. Young Nick Robinson also gives quite a performance as the awkward young man, star-crossed by genetics to start and then cursed by a mother with religious disease. Yes, religious disease. If we can posit a single God of many aspects, then why can't the affliction of irrational and entirely self-imposed destructive and demeaning servitude be expressed in a similarly singular unity? And if it's but a single affliction might there not be a single cure, and wouldn't that obviously be getting closer to achieving what they so missed through desperation to achieve it in the first place? She's whacked, she's hurting herself and others while claiming to serve God, as are so many others. So the Nazis weren't the only bad ones during the blitz and Muhammad Ali was right not to kill Viet Congs, particularly as they hadn't called him "nigger." It's a dangerous path urging us each and every one to make decisions for ourselves, but the odds get better when you think of how many clowns we've allowed to make them for us.
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