Wish You Were Here (1987)

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Directed by David Leland.

Starring Tom Bell, Clare Clifford, Barbara Durkin, Geoffrey Hutchings, Emily Lloyd.

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The British Wish You Were Here served as the auspicious film debut for 16-year-old Emily Lloyd. The scene is a British seaside community of the 1950s, where the local adults are shocked and embarrassed by the libertine Lynda (Lloyd), who dresses provocatively, behaves outrageously, and swears like a sailor (her favorite epithet is "Up your bum"). Lynda's mother is dead, and her father has given up trying to do anything with her. She attempts to hold down several jobs, but messes them all up through insolence and carelessness. Excessively promiscuous, Lynda has an affair with a middle-aged friend of her father's. She becomes pregnant, only to use her "fallen" state to gleefully shock and annoy her elders even more. Despite her bravado, there's an underlying sadness about Lynda: the title Wish You Were Here refers to her feelings concerning her late mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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The Micro Five: Unplanned Movie ...
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com

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"Last week, I introduced a new feature called The Micro Five, with the basic concept being that every Tuesday, I would come up with a five-item list based on a micro-specific topic, and then toss the baton to five other film bloggers, who would then rebut my list with a list of their own. I had fun putting together my list of Five Improbable Werner Herzog Anecdotes, but that whole baton tossing part didn't work out so great--the feedback I got indicated that the topic was *too* obscure, and that the rules were too vague. So, we're trying this again. This time I've picked what I think is a more accessible topic, and instead of tagging specific bloggers, I'll leave it open to anyone who wants to respond with a list of their own. If you put together a list, please paste a link in the comments to this post. If you'd like to put together a list but don't have a blog of your own, may I suggest starting one for free at Spout? Next week, I'll do a round-up post linking to all responses. T ... " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

liked it.

Director David Leland's valentine to sexual candor is most notable for introducing the bright, unaffected young actress Emily Lloyd. Lloyd's uninhibited, motherless Lynda is coy and sprightly without ever resorting to hapless, sex-kitten posing. Despite the nature of the material -- the script was based on the adolescence of notorious English madam Cynthia Payne -- Leland never uses Lloyd as a mere object of desire. The sex scenes are mostly rendered in objective long shot, as it becomes obvious that the film is as much about the sexual hangups of men as it is about the relative "promiscuity" of a teenage girl. In this respect, Wish You Were Here is a fine companion to Martha Coolidge's Rambling Rose (1991): both films recognize the need for sexual curiosity and experimentation in young women, despite the consternation that they might receive from hypocritical, repressed partners. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Tags: orphan , promiscuity , teenagers , war , comingofage
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