It is the beginning of the First World War and Rudyard Kipling is very much behind the British war effort. Some of his enthusiasm has rubbed off on his son, Jack, who can't wait to be accepted into the Army. The only problem is that his eyesight is terrible and initial attempts to sign up are thwarted because of this. Deeply disappointed that his son has been turned down, Rudyard pulls a few strings with his influential contacts and eventually Jack is accepted and joins up, much to the concern of Rudyard's wife and daughter, Carrie and Bird. Then Jack goes missing during the Battle of Loos and the Kipling family are thrown into confusion as they try to find out whether their son is still alive. Will Jack ever come home? If not, will they find out what happened to him?

David Haig, who also wrote the screenplay, stars as Rudyard Kipling. Better known (to me at least) for his roles in The Thin Blue Line and Four Weddings and a Funeral, I was a little concerned at the idea of him doing a serious role. Certainly to start with, it was rather off-putting. When he is arguing with the officials who turn Jack down for a place in the Army, I kept expecting him to come out with a Thin Blue Line line, such as 'My arse is on the line and I don't want a cock-up!'. However, once I had got used to him in the role, I could see that he was really good. His grief at the news that Jack is missing is contagious and I sobbed my way through the film with him, forgetting that he was anything other than what he was pretending to be. I would have liked a little longer to get under his skin, but on the whole, this is a powerful performance and I was deeply impressed. I was surprised to find that, seeing a photo of Rudyard Kipling at the time, Haig looks very much like him.

Type-cast in her Sex and the City role, I was again concerned that Kim Cattrall wouldn't be able to pull off the role as the wife of a prominent writer. I was stunned when I first saw her - she couldn't look more unlike Samantha Jones with black hair pulled back very unsexily from her face. Her performance was very unlike Samantha Jones as well. It is again very understated and we don't get much of a chance to get to know her, but particularly when she is grief-stricken, it is very very moving.

I think the timing of this film to coincide with Remembrance Day was an excellent idea. I think that so many of us, myself included, tend to forget about the horrors of the First and Second World War when most families lost at least one family member. This film dealt with the awfulness of it all very sensitively, thanks to the screenplay by David Haig. It also deals with the guilt that so many people must have felt for sending British soldiers out to almost certain injury and mental distress, if not death. Kipling's role in getting his son involved shows just how painful that guilt must have been for him. This is particularly obvious at the end of the film when Kipling quotes his poem, 'Have You News of My Boy Jack'.