Tom & Thomas
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Tom & Thomas |
| Original title | Tom & Thomas |
| Country of production | Netherlands , UK |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2002 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Esmé Lammers |
| script | Esmé Lammers |
| production |
Laurens Geels Dick Maas |
| music | Paul M. van Brugge |
| camera | Marc Felperlaan |
| cut | Bert Rijkelijkhuizen |
| occupation | |
| |
Tom & Thomas is a Dutch - English film from 2002 . Directed by Esmé Lammers , who wrote the book together with Hans Kuyper .
action
The almost nine-year-old boys Tom and Thomas grow up in completely different environments. Without ever getting to know each other, they are always aware of each other's existence.
Thomas Sheppard lives with his adoptive father Paul in a kind of studio apartment and apparently has everything a boy of his age could want: his own room, lots of toys, a computer , a bicycle. But material happiness is overshadowed by the mother's recent death. It can be concluded that the extremely realistic nightmare Thomas had one night in the run-up to Christmas was due to this loss. Thomas dreams of "Tom", who witnesses a child abduction from a kind of children's home and is finally chased through snow-covered streets by a sharp dog. Under this impression, Thomas wakes up and takes refuge with his quilt in the main room of the studio apartment, where his father is still painting on one of his large-format pictures, a portrait of his wife, who died in 1999. Thomas tells his father about the dream. Sheppard tries to calm his son down and reminds him that "Tom" is just an alter ego of his dreams, a product of his vivid imagination.
With their new neighbor, the pilot Celia Scofielt, the two get along very well straight away, Thomas invites them to his birthday breakfast the following day. It's his longed-for ninth birthday, and Thomas, a space and flight enthusiast, is visiting the London Science Museum with his adoptive father. There, however, he discovers his own image in a large mirror wall. As it turns out shortly afterwards, it is his twin brother Tom. He was on the run from child smugglers and therefore ran away from the boys' home in which he previously lived. So Thomas' dream had actually been the truth, it had happened to his brother. During his attempt to secretly leave the orphanage in which he grew up, Tom, unfortunately not unrecognized, witnessed a child abduction. Thomas and Tom decide to stay together and Tom accompanies Thomas home.
At school they swap roles unnoticed, and Tom (who is well versed in geography due to the drills in the home , among other things ), is very successful in taking a test for Thomas. The worried father, to whom the youth welfare office had already suggested to send him to boarding school due to the exuberant imagination and the sagging grades of his son, can tell the supervisor the positive result of the test on the phone with ease. He proudly picks up his son from school in the old bus, but Tom gets into the car while Thomas makes his way home on his bike. He is discovered and pursued by one of the child smugglers, but finally not by him, but by the police and delivered to the children's home. There, of course, everyone present thinks he is the escaped Tom.
Home manager Bancroft decides "Tom" should leave the country on the plane and be taken to adoptive parents in Africa , where a fortune will be paid for healthy European children. Thomas is drugged and put on the plane while Tom does everything possible to free his brother. When the attempt apparently fails to convince Paul Sheppard of the kidnapping and the fact that there are two boys, Tom sneaks on board the plane and flies with it as a stowaway . At the beginning of the flight you can hear his panic knocking, but when one of the flight attendants is checked, they are no longer audible. The pilot, who happens to be Celia, is no less worried (meanwhile it is finally −24 ° C cold) and heads for the London departure airport again - despite the concerns of her co-pilot that she is risking her job with this decision, no one should be blind Passenger are on board.
Paul Sheppard has in the meantime arrived at the airport, as have the police whom he has notified. Ultimately, he was convinced of the twin's existence, not least thanks to a clerk from the youth welfare office, who happened to see both files at the same time and realized that the attached photos of the children were like one another. She was also concerned about how many children had allegedly run away from this home in recent years.
In the final scene, Paul sits with the boys on a park bench and tells them about a letter from their mother that she wrote right after the birth and that was lying in the home with the things that had been found nine years earlier with the newborn Tom were. The letter shows that her mother was unable to care for the twins and therefore put them on the steps of a hospital. Before they could be found there by the clinic staff, however, one of the boys had been taken away by a stranger and was later adopted by Paul Sheppard and his wife. The child remaining on the steps was sent to an orphanage and was not adopted in the years that followed. When Paul finishes his story, the pilot approaches Celia on her motorcycle combination , the boys climb into the sidecar and Paul into the back seat. They drive away together.
criticism
"Pleasantly intricate family entertainment that uses the twin / doppelganger motif in a variety of ways to lead to a family reunification after some excitement."
Awards
- In 2002 Esmé Lammers won the Children's Jury Award at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival