Review: Lassie

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Eric Knight’s 1940 novel “Lassie Come-Home,” a class-observant tale set in impoverished pre-war Yorkshire, gets a classy, uncondescending adaptation by writer-director Charles Sturridge. An out-of-work coal miner sells his son’s beloved tricolor collie to a local duke who takes her up north to Scotland. She escapes and treks hundreds of miles home. To the original, Sturridge adds an opening fox chase detoured into a coal mine to underscore a class divide over humane treatment of the four-legged, and a heartwarming Yuletide scene near the end. Also added: a military call-up takes dads away from their families, and the Loch Ness monster gets a cameo. Most impressive is the casting. In MGM’s more faithful 1943 adaptation, Roddy McDowall played the lad Joe who Lassie greeted every day as school let out, and Elizabeth Taylor debuted as Priscilla, the duke’s granddaughter. Here the children are played by a pair of wondrous 9-year-olds: Jonathan Mason and Hester Odgers, respectively, with Peter O’Toole as the Duke. Joe’s mum is played by the luminous Samantha Morton. An itinerant puppeteer who befriends Lassie is played by Peter Dinklage (“The Station Agent”), and another strong supporting role is filled by Kelly Macdonald from “Trainspotting” and “Finding Neverland.” Winsome performances, stirring scenery, and uncanny dog handling by trainer Mathilde de Cagny lend this “Lassie” a deserved sentimentality that shames the typical artificially sweetened American kids flick. MIT prof Henry Jenkins quotes Knight ruing “the industrial paralysis, the narcotic of the dole, the meaningless slavery of the labor camps, the dunderheaded stubbornness of the middle class, the inertia of the leaders.” Jenkins theorizes: “the innocence of children and the intelligence and fidelity of dogs have been fetishized.” Many 9-year-olds seeing “Lassie,” whether their parents are unemployed here or deployed in Iraq, will want a dog of their own. 100m. 2.40 anamorphic widescreen. (Bill Stamets)