Review: 'Railway Children' is a somber children's adventure with lessons about war and racism

The cherished British chsracter trait of the stiff upper lip apparently gets taught early, as evidenced by the characters in “Railway Children,” a plodding child-centered drama from the Homefront of World War II.

It’s 1944, and parents in English cities are putting their children on trains heading to the country, to keep them safe as German bombs are dropped on metropolitan areas. That’s how the Evans children — teen Lily (Beau Gadsdon) and her little siblings Pattie (Eden Hamilton) and Teddy (Zac Cudby) — end up leaving their mother (Jessica Baglow) in Manchester to live in a town in Yorkshire.

The three land with Annie (Sheridan Smith), who’s the principal of the town’s school. Annie has a son, Thomas (Austin Haynes), and her mother, Bobbie (Jenny Agutter), who reassures the Evans children that when she was a girl, she, too, was transported from the city to the country, and ended up making her life there.

There’s more to Bobbie’s statement than most American moviegoers know. It turns out that “Railway Children” is not a remake of the 1970 film “The Railway Children,” but a sequel — because Agutter, when she was 17, played Bobbie as a girl, relocated to Yorkshire in 1905 (which is when Edith Nesbit wrote the children’s book on which both movies are based). Nesbit’s story and the 1970 movie version are, like Cliff Richard and bubble-and-squeak, uniquely British products that are beloved there and largely unfamiliar in the States.

The Evans children, with Thomas as their new companion, try to make the best of the situation, as they play around the train station and dodge the school bullies. Then they find Abe (KJ Aikens), a young Black American soldier who claims he’s hiding because he’s on a secret mission — but Lily soon learns that Abe has deserted his unit because of the racist MPs, and that he’s only 14.

The children are mostly left to their own devices — Annie is preoccupied when she gets a telegram from the British Army about her husband — and become the focus of a plot that’s equal parts children’s adventure and social-studies class in which the English kids learn about the harsh treatment of African Americans in the United States.

Director Morgan Matthews, whose credits are mostly in documentaries, doesn’t let things get too silly. He works with his young actors to impart the gravity of their wartime life, putting a serious edge on the adventure. Matthews benefits from the presence of the veteran actors, including Agutter, Tom Courtenay as a kindly uncle who works for the government, and John Bradley (“Game of Thrones,” “Moonfall”) as a secretive stationmaster.

“Railway Children” is more sober-minded than most American children’s films, as it teaches kids about the horrors of war and racism. Some may find it a little dry, but it has its share of gentle charms.

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‘The Railway Children’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 23, in theaters everywrhere. Rated PG for thematic material, some violence and language. Running time: 95 minutes.