The Darkest Light

Stephen Dillane - Tom
Kerry Fox - Sue
Keri Arnold - Catherine
Kavita Sungha - Uma
Jason Walton - Matthew
Nisha K. Nayar - Nisha
Nicholas Hope - Father Mark

Heart-rending sub-Loachian family drama from The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy. The industrious plot manages to incorporate racism, the crisis over foot-and-mouth disease, a child dying of leukaemia and a ghostly sighting on a Ministry of Defence firing range that symbolises different things for three separate characters. Kerry Fox, Stephen Dillane, Keri Arnold and Kavita Sungha lead the terrific cast in an intriguing blend of depressing kitchen-sink grit and cautiously hopeful magic realism.

In the windswept farmlands of the bleak Yorkshire Dales, Catherine (Keri Arnold) is a fearless ten-year-old who thinks nothing of skipping school to play on the wild moors near her family farm. Her parents hardly notice as they are too preoccupied by her younger brother Matthew's (Jason Walton) terminal leukaemia. To add insult to their already injured lives, their entire livestock is struck by an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

As Matthew's condition starts to deteriorate, Catherine makes friends with Indian neighbour Uma (Kavita Sungha), a new girl in the valley trying to adjust to the unfamiliar and occasionally hostile environment. While playing truant on the moor one day the two girls have a vision of the Virgin Mary that convinces Catherine that she is the key to saving Matthew's life. To her anxious parents, Tom (Stephen Dillane) and Sue (Kerry Fox), Catherine's insistence appears to be just the petulance of a neglected child and they become angry that Catherine is giving Matthew false hope. But as a change of events unfolds which gives credibility to her story, Matthew, their mother and the whole village begin to believe in the strength of this lonely girl's conviction.