God no, do not put anybody through that.

We had to study the book and watch the movie for GCSE English.

The writing is florid nonsense. The movie is worse: only one professional actor used throughout (the school teacher), and it shows.

Oh, and spoiler alert: the story is you can't have nice things, because even once you've found something nice you enjoy your brother is a dick and will kill it and put it in the bin.

Horrible, horrible, horrible book and film. Awful.

Seconding the recommendation. It's a beautiful movie about the friendship about a boy and a bird (also selected as part of the Sight & Sound Top 250 list of best movies of all times).

I've just been rewatching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Friends_in_the_North , and it's great (although not the same bit of The North).

It stars a James Bond and a Dr Who, and thanks to Game of Thrones I've just got to watch Peter Vaughan tragically decline twice in a few days. It's available on tpb.