IMDb >
My Way Home (1978)
Watch It
Buy it at Amazon
Rent it at blockbuster.com
Discuss in Boards More at IMDb Pro Add to My Movies Update Data
BETA
Discuss in Boards More at IMDb Pro Add to My Movies Update Data
Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotesOverview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditstv scheduleAwards & Reviews
user commentsexternal reviewsnewsgroup reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guiderecommendationsmessage boardPlot & Quotes
plot summaryplot synopsisplot keywordsAmazon.com summarymemorable quotesFun Stuff
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQOther Info
merchandising linksbox office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specslaserdisc detailsDVD detailsliterature listingsNewsDeskPromotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo galleryExternal Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clipsMy Way Home (1978) More at IMDbPro »
| Photos (see all 4 | slideshow) |
Overview
User Rating:
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
1 win moreUser Comments:
Great moreCast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Stephen Archibald | ... | Jamie | |
| Paul Kermack | ... | Jamie's father | |
| Jessie Combe | ... | Father's wife | |
| William Carrol | ... | Their son, Archie | |
| Morag McNee | ... | Father's girl friend | |
| Lennox Milne | ... | Grandmother | |
| Gerald James | ... | Mr. Bridge | |
| Andrew | ... | Boy in home | |
| John Young | ... | Shop assistant | |
| Ian Spowart | ... | Schoolboy | |
| Sheila Scott | ... | Foster mother | |
| Rebecca Haddick | ... | Salvation Army woman | |
| Archie | ... | Down and out | |
| Joseph Blatchley | ... | Robert | |
| Radir | ... | Egyptian boy |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
71 minCountry:
UKLanguage:
EnglishColor:
Black and WhiteSound Mix:
MonoFun Stuff
Trivia:
'Douglas, Bill' delayed making this final part of his autobiographical trilogy until 'Archibald, Stephen' was old enough to play Jamie in the Egyptian National Service scenes. moreFAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for My Way Home (1978)Recommendations
If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
Show more recommendations
|
|
|
|
|
| My Ain Folk | My Childhood | The Long Day Closes | All Creatures Great and Small | The Greatest |
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
Related Links
| Full cast and crew | Company credits | External reviews |
| IMDb Biography section | IMDb UK section | Add this title to MyMovies |





I'd never heard of this or the first two parts ("My Childhood" and "My Ain Folk") of the trilogy it concludes. I wonder why, because taken together they seemed to me one of the best films I'd ever seen--the more so that they're not the type of film I usually seek out or enjoy. Even while watching them, I kept intending to switch them off, but they were so good, I couldn't. At first they looked like nothing new: in style and technique (e.g. the deliberately reflective pace of the editing), they very much resemble low-budget art films circa 1960. And I couldn't always figure out what was going on--which relatives lived where, or how the character got to where he was.
Even the final panning shot of this film, though I ran it a couple of times over, I don't understand; it seemed right, I just didn't know exactly what I was supposed to be looking at. But against all of this was the almost painful clarity and believability of the work as a whole. It has no dramatic structure to rely on, and really no need of it, because all of it clearly derives from the structure of the creator's own life. Only someone who had experienced it and remembered how the experience looked and felt could have re-created it so vividly: sliding down the slag heap, sitting watching grandmother in her chair, careering up the stairs of the boarding school, each detail of each vignette. It struck me especially that although the child is as mute as children usually are in art films, he isn't the under-characterized, under-feeling icon child characters are generally made into; he's a child who would be (and probably was) mute, but he seems real. And unlike most victims in films, who are usually pawns in the conveying of some political message or simple sentiment, he's shown as actually living his life, even at the worst, e.g. when, and after, he's severely beaten. The tale is told in vignettes, but they make up the impression of a life, not a synthetic melodrama.
One detail I found interesting is the absence--one might almost conclude, the stunting--of any sexual interest; at one point the boy stares at a woman's legs, but almost at once--and significantly, I think--he raises his eyes to her unhappy face, which is turned away from him; the only gentleness, and almost the only human contact, he meets with, he gets from two men who both seem to be understood as homosexual, though no special emphasis is attached to this; it's just one detail of many, all intense with meaning, all of interest: e.g. the landscapes of the desperately poor mining neighborhood having almost the look of a fantastic realm, like something out of Mervyn Peake--as a child would see them; and the grandmother in all her contrary, incomprehensible moods--again, as they impress a child. We all forget, we stop seeing and feeling, we put the unassimilable complexities as far away from us as we can, because they keep us the children who have no power of them; but this director hadn't forgotten, he'd clung to them, and labored, obviously, to knead them together into this great, triune film. It's one of those I can well understand other people's disliking or dismissing, but after which dislike or dismissal I wouldn't be discussing films with them any more; I'd feel I owed that much loyalty to a work like this for what it gives.