In 2006 and 2007, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson all found time to strike out on their own in several non-Potter projects. Here are John B.'s reviews of My Boy Jack with Daniel Radcliffe, Ballet Shoes with Emma Watson and Driving Lessons with Rupert Grint.
MY BOY JACK
(2007)With Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Haig, Kim Catrall, Carey Mulligan, Julian Wadham
Directed by Brian Kirk
Reviewed by JB
Written by actor Daniel Haig, MY BOY JACK is a heartbreaking
tale
of a father, a son, and a war. The father is novelist Rudyard
Kipling (played by Haig), who uses his connections with the higher-ups
in the British Empire to get his eager son into the armed forces on the
cusp of World War I. The son is Jack (played by Daniel
Radcliffe), a wiry young man who is rejected by the Army and
Navy
for his poor eyesight but winds up in the Irish Guard.
But MY BOY JACK is not a war story, it is a family drama centered on Kipling's desire to have his boy fight for the British, Jack's desire to please his father, and Mrs. Kipling's search for Jack when he goes missing in action. Although the casting of Daniel Radcliffe as Jack was guaranteed to bring the ratings to ITV, the film really belongs to Haig, who not only looks like Kipling but also wrote the teleplay based on his own stage play. Radcliffe is not bad at all, although it make take Potterphiles a while to get past the idea of seeing Harry Potter in an Irish Guard uniform and ill-fitting hat. But Haig's performance as Kipling is at the heart of the film, and is so good, I would pay to see him in a one-man show about Kipling, even though I've never read a word of the author.
Although he in only in half
the film, Radcliffe
does fine work as
a boy who should have never been placed on the front lines and yet
emerges as a leader of men. If he sticks with quality films and other
acting projects like this one, Daniel Radcliffe may very well
escape being typecast as the boy wizard forever. Kim Catrall rounds out
the cast with
a touching performance as Caroline Kipling, the author's wife.
Her manic sense of denial as she pours through photographs of
soldiers trying to find one of her son provides some of the
film's
most powerful moments. 
- JB
BALLET SHOES
(2007)With Emma Watson, Emilia Fox, Yasmin Paige, Lucy Boynton, Richard Griffiths
Directed by Sandra Goldbacher
Reviewed by JB
Like her friend Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson opted for a television
period piece while between Potter movies. Based on Noel
Streatfield's book, BALLET SHOES is a light and winsome film,
presented on
the BBC as a Christmas treat to British telly-viewers. The film is
about three sisters, all adopted individually by an eccentric fossil
collector (played by the marvelous Richard Griffiths), who attend
ballet school while trying to fulfill their own dreams and desires.
Free from most of the ticks and tricks she uses to play the
brainy but bothersome Hermione in the Potter films, Watson acquits
herself quite nicely here. She's definitely still limited as
an
actress, but in a frothy fairy tale like this, her
surprising charm (not usually evident in the Potter films) and
appealing looks are assets.
Although Watson does fine as Pauline, it is Yasmin Paige who virtually steals the film as sister Petrova, who dutifully goes through the motions at ballet school but really wants to be an aviator like Amelia Earhart (the film is set in the 1930s). Watson may be the star, but Paige comes through with the more rounded and emotional performance, almost equaled by the youngest actress, Lucy Boynton, as Posy, the one sister who does want to dance. for a living All three young actresses manage a nice chemistry together, and are helped out tremendously by the adult cast, including the aforementioned Griffiths (Uncle Vernon of the Potter films) as Great Uncle Matthew and Emilia Fox as the girls' mother, who needs them all to be successful if she is going to be able to pay the bills each month.
A trifle, but a lovely one,
and this from a guy who can recite the script of GOODFELLAS from memory. 
½ - JB
DRIVING LESSONS
(2007)With Rupert Grint, Julie Walters, Laura Linney, Nicholas Farrell
Written and Directed by Jeremy Brock
Reviewed by JB
In each of the first two Potter trio "solo"
films I have watched, the young stars have given good performances but
were outshined by at least one cast mate. The story is the
same
with DRIVING LESSONS, a coming of age story starring Rupert Grint.
Even though he doesn't get the nearly the amount of press
that
Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson do, he may have the brightest future
in films. His awkwardness and non-star looks are as appealing
in
their own way as the more conventional looks of his his two Potter
co-stars, and he may have the most rounded acting skills of
all
three, certainly possessing the best flair for comedy.
Yet it is Julie Walters who provides the best reason to watch DRIVING LESSONS, a movie that strains to be seen as original yet is made up of two of the biggest clichés of independent films. Grint plays a character not too far removed from Ron Weasley - a young man in the shadows waiting to break out and find his moment in the sun. Julie Walter is the aging and eccentric actress who hires him as a personal assistant even though her life seems to consist solely of gardening and getting herself into spontaneous mischief. The whole "eccentric old woman" plot has been done to death, from HAROLD AND MAUDE through GRACE QUIGLEY and beyond, but if you get the right actress, it is usually fun to watch. Walters is hilarious throughout, and, having worked with Grint in five films as the Weasley matriarch, she obviously is confortable playing off him Their many scenes together, which take up most of the movies, make the film fun to watch.
But aside from the "eccentric
woman" cliché, we
have the anti-Christian attitude that seems to be the sole reason to
even mention Christianity in films these days. Christians are
forever being portrayed as Bible-quoting, icy smiling, foolish,
vapid hypocritical idiots. I've had just about my
fill of it
and have taken an entire star off my rating because of it. 
½ - JB
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