The opening scenes define the movie as one in which a girl will figure as the central character and the date is the late 60s. The camera takes us on a early morning, voyeuristic tour of a young girl's bedroom -- hair brush, stuffed bunny rabbit, books indicating an interest both in arts and sciences, a crucifix, a school uniform draped very carefully over a chair, alarm clock with flowers on its face. This is a bright, sensible young lady with a playful side. The date is given by the accompanying song, a trite and somewhat wistful but pretty melody called "I Start Counting," sung in an untrained but charming soprano by somebody that sounds like a child. The tune and arrangement are redolent of incense and weed.
Then the fourteen-year-old Jenny Agguter leaps out of bed and begins grooming herself for another day at school. She's young, barely recognizable as the more mature older sister in "Walkabout," plumper and execrably cute. I immediately disliked the images as she pulled on her tight gym shorts and slipped into her tiny pleated skirt because there was no way this side of the laws of physics that I would be able to squeeze and bite her supple figure. The bedroom was bad enough.
We meet the comfortable working-class family that has adopted her, and the somewhat creepy older brother she adores. (She rolls him a joint as he's driving her to school.) I should mention that Jenny Agguter does as much acting even in this introductory sequence as she seemed to do in the entirety of her remaining career. Never less than magnetic, she was almost always without expression. A decomposing zombie might have generated the same reaction from her as a slice of angel food cake. But this is her first film, and she's nicely animated.
The direction by David Greene is perceptive. There is no stylistic razzle dazzle, which must have been a temptation in 1968. But Greene reins himself in. During a school lecture on "sex" there's a hilarious moment when the camera lingers on the elderly priest's frozen smile after one of the girls pipes up with, "What's the Pope got against the pill?" But we soon learn that this is going to be a murder mystery in which Agguter begins to suspect her brother of being a serial killer. He lies often and there's some to do about his trying to ditch a bloodied sweater.
But no one should think of this as a drama about discovering a murderer in the family. There's scarcely a police officer in the film, nothing about any evidence they have. It's the story of a naive young girl in the liminal period of adolescence who is given to childish fibs and fantasies, intrigues, jealousies, and shared secrets, a kind of Nancy Drew or maybe Shirley Jackson during a lucid period. She eave drops and hides behind doors and in the backs of vans. She plays pranks on her family, pretending to have been kidnapped. She dreams of handsome men loving her and touching their lips to hers. She asks why a serial killer shouldn't give himself up as long as he can't help himself and there are people who love him.
The real climax of the film is not when the murderer is caught -- his identity was obvious early on -- but when Agguter's post-pubescent fantasy life bumps into adult reality and her adored brother turns out not to be a killer but worse, a much-loved older man having a very physical affair with a grown woman, not Agguter herself. It's a touching and somewhat demanding scene and she handles it well.
The chronological climax is something of a deescalation. She steps at night into the killer's lair and he rambles on about being laughed at, as if just escaped from the booby hatch. And no matter how fast or how far she runs, the killer's ectoplasm appears to have been transmogrified and she runs (or backs) into him.
It's far from being a "hidden gem" but it's professionally managed, it has a fey charm, Jenny Agguter is most fetching, and it's a genuine pleasure to listen to British speech, in which "Where do you think you're going?" If you enjoyed this, you might try "The World of Henry Orient." registers as "Wah d'you think yaw gaying?"
Then the fourteen-year-old Jenny Agguter leaps out of bed and begins grooming herself for another day at school. She's young, barely recognizable as the more mature older sister in "Walkabout," plumper and execrably cute. I immediately disliked the images as she pulled on her tight gym shorts and slipped into her tiny pleated skirt because there was no way this side of the laws of physics that I would be able to squeeze and bite her supple figure. The bedroom was bad enough.
We meet the comfortable working-class family that has adopted her, and the somewhat creepy older brother she adores. (She rolls him a joint as he's driving her to school.) I should mention that Jenny Agguter does as much acting even in this introductory sequence as she seemed to do in the entirety of her remaining career. Never less than magnetic, she was almost always without expression. A decomposing zombie might have generated the same reaction from her as a slice of angel food cake. But this is her first film, and she's nicely animated.
The direction by David Greene is perceptive. There is no stylistic razzle dazzle, which must have been a temptation in 1968. But Greene reins himself in. During a school lecture on "sex" there's a hilarious moment when the camera lingers on the elderly priest's frozen smile after one of the girls pipes up with, "What's the Pope got against the pill?" But we soon learn that this is going to be a murder mystery in which Agguter begins to suspect her brother of being a serial killer. He lies often and there's some to do about his trying to ditch a bloodied sweater.
But no one should think of this as a drama about discovering a murderer in the family. There's scarcely a police officer in the film, nothing about any evidence they have. It's the story of a naive young girl in the liminal period of adolescence who is given to childish fibs and fantasies, intrigues, jealousies, and shared secrets, a kind of Nancy Drew or maybe Shirley Jackson during a lucid period. She eave drops and hides behind doors and in the backs of vans. She plays pranks on her family, pretending to have been kidnapped. She dreams of handsome men loving her and touching their lips to hers. She asks why a serial killer shouldn't give himself up as long as he can't help himself and there are people who love him.
The real climax of the film is not when the murderer is caught -- his identity was obvious early on -- but when Agguter's post-pubescent fantasy life bumps into adult reality and her adored brother turns out not to be a killer but worse, a much-loved older man having a very physical affair with a grown woman, not Agguter herself. It's a touching and somewhat demanding scene and she handles it well.
The chronological climax is something of a deescalation. She steps at night into the killer's lair and he rambles on about being laughed at, as if just escaped from the booby hatch. And no matter how fast or how far she runs, the killer's ectoplasm appears to have been transmogrified and she runs (or backs) into him.
It's far from being a "hidden gem" but it's professionally managed, it has a fey charm, Jenny Agguter is most fetching, and it's a genuine pleasure to listen to British speech, in which "Where do you think you're going?" If you enjoyed this, you might try "The World of Henry Orient." registers as "Wah d'you think yaw gaying?"