Sebastian Rice-Edwards

Bomb damage offers Bill somewhere to play in Hope and Glory (1987). Sebastian Rice-Edwards makes that response believable without asking us to admire the boy’s innocence, and we recommend the performance for its lack of fuss. Bill is curious about what is happening around him, including things an adult would rather he understood differently. Rice-Edwards does not make the character seem older or wiser to reassure us; he allows the pleasure to be awkward.

John Boorman writes and directs from his own childhood memories, and his willingness to let children be heedless is crucial. Geraldine Muir’s Sue is just as unforced, so Rice-Edwards is not left carrying the film’s account of childhood alone. We laughed at their delight in treating bomb damage as a playground, then felt ashamed of how easily we had joined them. Staying close to what interests Bill and Sue makes it possible to forget, briefly, what their freedom has cost. The nostalgia sometimes softens the film too much, but the children keep its warmth from becoming entirely comfortable.

His subsequent work does not offer a long sequence of acting performances to set beside Bill. The credit as Young Bill in Boorman’s Queen & Country (2014) is a return to the character, while the larger change is a move into directing. Working as Seb Edwards from the late 2000s, he made commercials and music videos, and directed the short Friday (2012). Editor Sam Rice-Edwards has been a recurring collaborator on his directing projects.

We would not infer a director’s strengths from a performance given as a child, or treat a brief acting record as proof of what might have been. Hope and Glory gives us something specific to value: a young lead who need not be solemn or sweet to hold our attention. If you want children in a war film to set a good example, Bill is likely to disappoint you.