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Lynda is a force of nature, whirlwinding through a seaside resort in the 1950s. She is one of those rare adolescents whose contempt for bourgeois caution is a kind of hormonal fire storm, too intense to be smothered by conventional explanation or even by unconventional sexual encounters. The most notable of these is with Eric (Tom Bell), who is old enough to be her father but not strong enough to be her mate. Or, in her estimation, the father of her child. Lynda's decision to have the baby may not qualify as a triumph of the human spirit, but it is, like her subsequent career as the notorious "Madam Cyn," a victory for sheer, uncalculated nerve.
Say the same for Rita, Sue and Bob Too. The former (Siobhan Finneran and Michelle Holmes) baby-sit for the latter (George Costigan). When he drives them home after work, they chipperly take turns putting out for him. A minimum of romantic spirit and a maximum of haste mark these encounters. Monosyllabically written by Andrea Dunbar, directed with documentary flatness by Alan Clarke, this movie achieves a cinematic rarity: a perfect lack of grace. And thus a perfect match of style and subject. If we believed these figures were capable of rising above themselves and their drab surroundings, we would probably be appalled by their rutting ways. As it is, we see that the consummation toward which they rudely slouch, a menage a trois, represents undreamed-of fulfillment. Been down so long it looks like up to them.
There is bravery and originality in the bluntness of these movies. And in + their avoidance of melodramatic hype and improbably heartening resolutions, there are lessons American movies might learn. Still, one retreats with relief to the accustomed elegances of a well-made film like The Whistle Blower. To be sure, the paranoia that long ago settled damply around our spy dramas seems to have drifted eastward to infect Writer Julian Bond and Director Simon Langton. Their story has the British espionage establishment protecting a highly placed mole by murdering innocent, clerkish underlings in an attempt to convince its American allies that it is doing something about a leak the latter are complaining about.
The explanation for the excessive intricacy of this contrivance is too thin. But Nigel Havers is fine as a victim at once too earnest and erratic for his own good. And Michael Caine is marvelous as his father, trying his best not to believe the worst about his son's fate. No movie actor works more patiently to achieve his emotional effects. No matter what stimulating mischief the young folks of British cinema are up to, one prays that the sun never sets on him or on this greatest of English movie genres.