Winter in Wartime

There are an awful lot of films about boys playing at war, forced to grow up as they learn that conflict is no leisure pursuit. That’s the message here, too, but what with the silly story and Martin Koolhoven’s gooey direction, viewers could be forgiven for thinking that war is a game, complete with slow-motion chases, feats of derring-do and Germans popping out of the woods at exactly the moment you’d expect a diversion. Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier, pictured) is a 13-year-old Dutch boy living under occupation in January 1945. He’s ashamed of his father’s cosying up to the conquerors, and delighted when, after an abortive resistance mission, he finds a wounded RAF soldier’s hiding-place; naturally he resolves to help the hero. Novice Lakemeier is terrific; everyone else overacts as if trying to overpower the violin-soaked score by dint of sheer emoting.  But it’s the story’s inevitable twist – as if war needed sexing up – that undermines a potentially interesting look at the tensions and horrors that combat visits on the young.