VETERAN BRITISH DIRECTOR ROY WARD BAKER BROUGHT CATHERINE COOKSON’S NOVEL A GRAND MAN TO THE SCREEN AS JACQUELINE.
This warm- hearted comedy-drama has all the hallmarks of classic Cookson: ordinary people muddling through life’s difficulties with a combination of pluck, humour and a little luck. Transferred from the original English setting of the book, the film is set in Belfast during the week of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. The McNeil family is barely making ends meet, as their alcoholic father, Mike McNeil (John Gregson), struggles to keep his job at the shipyards. Mike’s daughter Jacqueline is a mischievous and resolute little girl, who worships her father. To compensate for his shortcomings she makes up outlandish stories about her dad’s life to impress her schoolmates. But she promises God that she will give up telling lies if her prayers to save her family are answered. Child actress Jacqueline Ryan, confidently takes on the title role of the devoted daughter determinedly hatching plans to help her family’s situation. She holds her own among Abbey veterans with decades of film and stage experience behind them including her mother, Kathleen Ryan, Noel Purcell, Maura Delaney and Cyril Cusack and Maire Kean. —Michael Gray.