Small Island

Filmmaker John Alexander's PBS-aired Masterpiece Classic adaptation of Andrea Levy's acclaimed 2004 novel combines the personal with the political in its depiction of post–World War II England, where many West Indians settled, including veterans. Much like America's Tuskegee Airmen, black subjects of the British Empire could take up arms, but equal rights were another matter. Narrator Hugh Quarshie first introduces Hortense (Naomie Harris), an orphaned schoolteacher in Jamaica, who longs for a better life and tells a friend, “This island is too small if you've got big dreams.” Although Hortense hopes to marry Michael (rapper Ashley Walters), fate has other plans, and she weds Gilbert (David Oyelowo) instead, largely to seek her fortune in Britain. Meanwhile, Queenie (Ruth Wilson), a young white woman in London, has similar yearnings for a new life (she left Yorkshire to escape the farm), but her marriage to Bernard (Benedict Cumberbatch) is tested when he's stationed overseas. During the war Queenie provides lodgings to Michael—now a soldier—a move that will have lasting repercussions. Later, Queenie rents a room to Hortense and Gilbert, but Bernard, returned from combat, doesn't share his wife's liberal-minded views on race relations. A deeply moving film, this is highly recommended. (K. Fennessy)