This excellent film is a forgotten jewel. An intriguing story about the dark side of the childhood, but also a poetic look to a group of boys and girls who decided to continue his life as usual, as if his mother were among them and not dead. So, the undesired return of a father (or maybe not the father of all of them, perhaps) breaks the normal life (in the point of view of the children) that they live. So the father (Dirk Bogarde) should pay for to be an stranger in some kind of closed paradise. The direction of Jack Clayton (remember The Innocents) is perfect, and so is Dirk Bogarde, in the best moment of his career of actor.