All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

As I haven't read the book-comic book, I can't say if it's a good adaption or not. But the animation as it is is good enough. The story is very truthful and you can easily be moved by it. The characters are simple, ordinary people, who try to deal with the hardships that life throws at them. The couple's dynamics were great and the family drama was moving. I loved that the movie kept it real and didn't try to idolised the situation or soften it. The drawings were really good, with soft colours that reminded of a winter tale rather than a fantasy fairy tale. So, my rating is 4 out of 10.

A utter delight from start to finish. Raymond Briggs ability to turn 'ordinary' people into extraordinary stories is incomparable. The story of his mum and dad living through incredible times, world war 2, particularly. The voices of Broadbent and Blethyn are the highlight, there able to bring Ethel and Ernest to life as us the audience fall in love with these simple but very human characters. Visually as expected it's beautiful yet simplistic in its form and adult Raymond has a very poignant and educated voice which works beautifully alongside his less informed but traditional parents.I could wax lyrically about this all night but do yourself a favor take 90 minutes out of your lives and laugh, cry and wonder how Briggs is once again able to make the simplistic fantastic!

I've just got around to watching this today. As a 50-year-old I could relate to so much of it and relate it to my grandparents and uncles and aunties who were around during this time. Frankly, I found the film utterly heartbreaking. I must have had tears in my eyes pretty solidly for the last 30 minutes of it. It was quite overwhelming in places especially when Raymond views a body in the morgue which was very reminiscent of something that happened to me recently. I was going to write that it was a perfect slice of life but that is not big enough as it really does pretty much cover two entire lives. My boys who are under ten it has to be said were not gripped by it and did fade in and out of watching it but for adults, I can't recommend it highly enough.

The notion of 'ordinary people' is perverse, like fingerprints, everyone is different, living in a celebrity culture where appearing on a television reality show can somehow make you special, someone to keep up with or be interested by, it was timely to receive this Christmas antidote to superficial stardom. Raymond Briggs' endearing depiction of his parents through a tumultuous half of the 20th century was also an excellent history lesson, showing how major, earth-shattering events influenced supposedly ordinary people. Most of all, it showed how class, status, social mobility and home ownership influenced British social history. There are sadly few milkman around now, if there were, neither they nor contemporary equivalents, would be able to afford the spacious terrace house in Wimbledon!Just as in Robert Tressell's landmark work 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' Edwardian decorators did not think privilege was 'for the likes of us', former ladies maid Ethel, supported the status quo, voted Conservative, did not envisage storming the barricades anytime soon, whilst Ernest aspired to Labour's inspirational message after the travails of Workd War 2 and was an intrinsic part of the ideological spirit that brought the NHS, welfare state and a less class-ridden society.Raymond is shown eschewing office work, despite having worked as a draughtsman during national service, for the seemingly risky and unstable world of art. How right he was, as we saw, to follow his talent and become one of the world's greatest illustrators. Although his parents were not famous, they showed the extraordinary stoicism that brought this country through. Sadly extreme voices, alienation and dissimilitude have turned true British grit, tolerance and decency upside down with the appalling, self-defeating referendum and disgraceful betrayal of 'Brexit means Brexit'. Whether part of a family (as here), community (partying on VE Day) or country (Ernest reading the paper daily and keeping up with news on the radio), we are part of one Europe and one world; fragmenting it will lead back to Morrison Shelters in the lounge - or worse. The innate decency of Briggs and his parents, their acceptance of only being able to have one (super) child, Raymond's wife being schizophrenic and unable to have children, was a marker of this warm, life-affirming film which not only brought tears to our eyes, but should lead us to be better people and show a more caring attitude. We may not all be illustrators or artists, but we can all draw our conclusions....