Paul Bryant's Reviews > The Changeling

Was ever a good deed punished like this one….. Teacher in 1950s Glasgow has a slum kid in his class, already on probation for stealing, and the target of revulsion and mockery by the other kids. But Tom the slum kid is the smartest one in the class. So benignly selfregardingly wellmeaning teacher Charles decides it would be a great idea to introduce Tom to the finer things in life & open up his cramped horizons by taking him with his family off to the seaside cottage they rent every year for a fortnight. How great-hearted! How misguided! How disastrous!

It's a strong tale and the psychology of everyone is scored like a late quartet by Beethoven : the sceptical wife, the jealous but fascinated daughter, the oblivious son, the battleaxe mother-in-law, and most complicatedly, frantically virtue-signalling (to himself as much as anyone else) Charles and Tom, who wasn’t ever waving but always drowning. Leading us to the gloomy inevitability of the final chord.

3.5 stars