If you told it the other way round in a film, it would seem...

If you told it the other way round in a film, it would seem like a tract, ... The message would be too much in the foreground. It's human stories, those are the ones you're interested in. So the argument, as it were, is submerged and that's the way it should be, really. You've got to get the audience interested in the lives of the boys.