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Wish You Were Here | Year: 1987 Classification: Drama Directed: - David Leland Actors/Actresses: - Emily Lloyd ending ruins it. review includes spoilers. This was a funny, high-spirited, literate film, but the ending was disgusting and ruined the film for me. Emily Lloyd's character Linda is self-centered, self-absorbed, desperate to be the center of attention at any cost. That's fine as a character study. But in the end she gets impregnated by a wretched, scum bag, dirty-old-man lech. And Linda has the baby, and now that she has total POWER over this baby since she's the poor thing's MOTHER, that's considered some sort of victorious happy ending!!! "I now have control of my fate, yippeee." No, she has control of that baby's fate, which is TRAGIC!! Linda is going to be the most wretched mother for that kid, being, as mentioned, self-centered and self-absorbed. Egomaniacs make terrible parents. And, as with Linda, it's often egomaniacs who want to be parents most, for the control it gives them over a human life. I've known kids with mothers like Linda, and they end up in rehab by age 14. And just on a genetic level, Linda's baby has a bad roll of the dice with the narcissistic mess that is Linda for a mother and that dirty sociopathic lech as its father. The same ending would have been acceptable if its TONE had been one of TRAGEDY for the unfortunate baby. But to portray the outcome as a "victory" for Linda appalled me. When I later learned that this film was based on the story of a notorious British madam named Cynthia Payne, who ran a house of ill repute for old-age pensioners and retired military men with kinky tastes, I was hardly surprised. "Up yer bum!" Film buffs should rejoice that this outstanding little British gem has finally seen the light of day on DVD. David Leland's 1987 comedy-drama about a headstrong 16-year-old girl's "coming of age" in post WW 2 England only played the arthouses upon on its initial run, so remains largely unknown to U.S. audiences. This movie recalls "golden age" British sex comedies like "Georgy Girl", "The Knack", "The Family Way" and "Alfie". Vivacious teenager Emily Lloyd makes an astounding, Oscar-worthy debut as pretty but potty-mouthed "Linda", whose hormone-fueled manic behavior (...) are causing her somewhat reserved widower father and younger sister to walk around in a perpetual state of public embarrassment. With a taut script and precise performances, the film breezes along on a deft roller coaster of deep belly-laugh hilarity and genuine, bittersweet emotion. Excellent support from the entire cast, especially from the great Thom Bell, who finds a sympathetic humanity in a somewhat vile character that a lesser actor could not likely pull off. The real tragedy here is that Emily Lloyd, who displayed such amazing potential in this debut, never really "broke big", appearing in only a few unremarkable projects and then basically dropping off the radar to join that sad "whatever happened to..." file. The DVD transfer is excellent, no extras to speak of, but this wonderful film speaks for itself! A Breath of Fresh Air This movie is about Lynda, a rather delinquent teenage girl growing up after the the Second World War in a bleak and dismal English seaside town. She spends most of the film getting sacked from one job after another and losing her innocence with considerable thoroughness and determination. Working briefly for the local bus company, she eagerly loses her virginity to a rather clumsy young bus conductor who is not slow afterwards to take his custom elsewhere. Somewhat heartbroken, she tries to cheer herself up by throwing herself at Eric, a much older man who has been making advances, with predictably sad results... Leland has written and realized a masterly script that is sometimes extremely funny and sometimes desperately sad, shifting between these two with enormous sureness of touch. The best thing about it by miles is Emily Lloyd's performance as Lynda, feisty, immensely funny, sometimes appallingly foolish, sometimes downright obnoxious but somehow always completely adorable, which is nothing short of astonishing in its charm and total believability. Perhaps you agree with me that the coming of age movie can sometimes be a pretty tedious genre where one suspects too many writers turn memories of their not very interesting adolescences into not very interesting stories. If so you might be put off seeing this which would be a terrible shame as this utterly fresh and delightful movie is a glorious exception. Buy Wish You Were Here at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Wish You Were Here Search with the Priority Search Engine on Wish You Were Here This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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