Synopsis
He went looking for a man for her. And found himself.
A boarding-school girl asks the boy next door for help getting an abortion.
1972 Directed by Buzz Kulik
A boarding-school girl asks the boy next door for help getting an abortion.
Movies about teenagers love to lean into melodrama, but the ones I love always tend to be the ones that lean away from it, working their way around to searing truth through realism and casualness. This film manages that in a quietly spectacular and totally authentic way. Usually I love discovering obscure films, but...I kind of hate that this one is obscure. I should have been able to watch it or even known about it as a teenager. Seriously.
“You’ve got chocolate on your face, sonny.”
This movie is really smart and well-written and frank and bittersweet. I was liking it all the way through, but that last scene and the conversation they end things on really blew me away. I love it when movies end on a high note.
Both the kids are absolutely great in this—especially for it being their first work, from what I can tell. Pamela Sue Martin is an angel. Lloyd Bridges is great in a supporting role. Nobody gets a healthier gleam in their eye when they’re whiskey drunk than him. I liked this one a lot.
Saccharine sweet, in a good way. Legit shocked at how matter-of-fact this film treats the subject of abortion. There’s something interesting about how some characters reveal their disapproval of it without the film ever feeling like it is disapproving. Both teen leads are great, and in general I liked how all the teens looked like teens. I also appreciated how complicated both character’s emotions are. Always nice to see Tom Bosley and Lloyd Bridges who is very good and has a particularly devastating scene.
For first-time actors, their performances were not great nor outright terrible, while all other aspects were either serviceable or bad. Hard to believe this actually competed for the Palme d'Or 😅
Feels like a film from the 70s - in a good way. A simple story, well performed by two great young actors.