First Light (2010)

First Light is a historical and biographical drama, which premiered on British television (BBC) in 2010. It is the story of a young man, who joined the RAF and became a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain. It is a true story; based on the memoirs of the young man. Here is some basic information about it:

** Director: Matthew Whiteman

** Writers: Matthew Whiteman and Caleb Ranson

** Based on Geoffrey Wellum’s memoirs First Light – written during the 1980s and published in 2002

** Run time: 1 hour and 19 minutes

The cast includes the following:

** Geoffrey “Geoff” Wellum as himself – age 89 – narrator

** Sam Heughan as Geoffrey Wellum (1921-2018) – age 18-19

** Tuppence Middleton as Grace Neil – Geoffrey’s girlfriend

** Richard Walsh as Percy Wellum – Geoffrey’s father

** Alex Robertson as John Wilfred “Tommy” Lund (1919-1941) - RAF pilot

** Ben Aldridge as Brian Kingcome (1917-1994) – RAF pilot – group captain

** Gary Lewis as Mac – flight mechanic – ground crew

This drama covers a period of sixteen months: the time from May 1940 to August 1941. It is a very personal account of the war. There are some battle scenes in the air. But there are also many scenes where we are on the ground. The movie-makers want to show us what the battles meant to the pilots and how it affected them.

What do reviewers say about this historical drama? On IMDb it has a rating of 70 per cent, which corresponds to 3.5 stars on Amazon. On Amazon UK there are more than 110 reviews of this product. The average rating is 4.6 stars.

If you ask me, the former rating is too low, while the latter rating is too high. Why? This movie is good, but not great. There are some flaws here and there. Let me explain:

# 1. It is rather short. It runs for only 1 hour and 19 minutes, including the credit rolls at the end. A feature movie should run for at least 90 minutes, preferably 100 minutes. Some feature movies run for 120 minutes.

# 2. It takes a while to find out who is who. The characters are not always introduced with their names. This problem can be solved by placing an on-screen message next to each character the first time he or she appears. Unfortunately, this was not done here.

# 3. The dialogue is not always easy to follow. Many actors speak very fast and they mumble. They do not speak clearly. This problem is more serious when we get to the battle scenes which take place in the air. Now the actors are wearing a mask and communicating via poor quality radio. Subtitles could have solved this problem. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles available for this movie.

I like this movie and I want to give it a good rating, but as you can see, there are some flaws here and there. I have to remove one star because of these flaws. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of four stars.

PS # 1. Director Matthew Whiteman explains how the battle scenes were created in the following post which is available online: “Dramatising the real Battle of Britain,” BBC TV Blog, 14 September 2010.

PS # 2. For more information about the Battle of Britain, see the following items:

** Spitfire Sisters (2010) – a documentary film about the female pilots who worked for British Air Transport Auxiliary during the war

** Spitfire (2018) – a documentary film about the famous fighter plane and its role during the war

PS # 3. The Battle of Britain is an important chapter of World War Two, but there are two definitions of how long it was. According to the British definition, it was from 10 July to 31 October 1940. According to the German definition, it was from July 1940 to June 1941.

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Back cover of the DVD box

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 Geoffrey Wellum in 2009

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