Small Island

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Actors: Naomie Harris , Hugh Quarshie , Benedict Cumberbatch , Shaun Parkes , Ashley Walters , Michael Elwyn , David Oyelowo , Karl Johnson , Jonathan Harden , Mary Jo Randle , Nikki Amuka-Bird , Roger Sloman , Eoin Macken , Peter Brooke , Bentley Kalu , Denise Black , Leonie Forbes , Laurence Spellman , Teddy Price , Laura Hughes , Kerri McLean , Rachel Pickup , Delroy Atkinson , Ruth Wilson , Damien Devaney , Mark David , Terence Frisch

Director: John Alexander

IMDB Rate: 7.7 out of 10 (127 votes)

Plot Summary:In 1939 Hortense, illegitimate but intelligent and ambitious, is brought up on Jamaica with the family of charismatic, free-thinking Michael, who joins the Air Force when war breaks out and goes to England. After the war, Hortense, now a qualified teacher, makes a marriage of convenience to Gilbert Joseph, paying for his passage to England on condition he sends for her. She not only hopes to see Michael again but believes that living in Britain will give her more scope. When she arrives in London in 1948, she is extremely disappointed by the one room in which they must live and the obvious colour prejudice. Queenie, their liberal landlady, is also a woman used to disappointment, marrying decent but dull and sexless Bernard to get her away from the family farm. Whilst Bernard - now presumed missing - was in the Air Force during the war, she first took in lodgers from the armed forces, partly for the company, including Michael, with whom she had sex.