The Winslow Boy (1999) (Closed Captioned)

Based on an actual trial that created a media frenzy in WWI-era London, THE WINSLOW BOY might have been conceived as a standard courtroom drama. Instead, director David Mamet (working from the play by Terence Rattigan) focuses on a family pushed to the limit by its fight for justice. The trouble begins when Ronnie Winslow (Guy Edwards), a 13-year-old naval cadet, is accused of, and subsequently expelled for, stealing a five-shilling postal order. The boy's father, Arthur (Nigel Hawthorne), believes his son's protestations of innocence and sets in motion an expensive fight against the immense bureaucratic machinery of the crown. The expense and publicity imperil the family--costing Arthur's suffragette daughter, Catherine, a suitor, for example--even as the case becomes a national cause célèbre. The story captures a period of intense social change; charts an early example of the "media trial"; and asks the very human question, What is one's good name worth? Excellent performances abound in the film, especially from Jeremy Northam as the charismatic lawyer Sir Robert Morton; and Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, as Catherine.