FILM: Swallows and Amazons (dir: Philippa Lowthorpe, 2016)

"We need to sail closer to the wind."

To be fair, there is little that can be done with the somewhat lightweight but idealised 1930s-fixed setting of the original pre-Second-World-War novel, so what we have here is a very familiar but less sunny and handsomely-mounted remake of the 1974 version with an unconvincingly beefed-up sub-plot about spies and a livelier set-piece ending.  Kelly Macdonald, Rafe Spall, Andrew Scott and Jessica Hynes are all fine in the lead adult roles but have little to do, and apart from a few good moments by Dane Hughes as the older brother John, the children's performances veer between adequate and painful.   The screenplay holds together well thematically (family, absent fathers, coming-of-age, the oncoming conflict) and the scenery is used to maximum big-screen effect, but this 2016 incarnation is quite a languorous if harmless telling of a slight and dated tale.