Other Titles • Wish You Were Here (1987) • Too Much • Ich wollte, du wärst hier (1988)
Synopses for Wish You Were Here (1987)
1.
"A terrific movie. Two thumbs up!" - Siskel & Ebert
Emily Lloyd is "captivating" (The New York Times), "radiant" (Rex Reed) and "mischievously lovely (Vogue) as a fragile yet feisty girl growing up in a straitlaced English town in this "beautifully observed" (LA Weekly), "rapturously good" (Los Angeles Times) film.
Mature beyond her years because of the untimely death of her mother, 15-year-old Lynda Mansell (Lloyd) delights in defying convention. And with the wink of an eye or the flash of a thigh, she finds love in all the wrong places, much to the mortification of her conservative father Hubert. But when Hubert's best friend seduces Lynda - and leaves her pregnant and alone - this outwardly bold, inwardly vulnerable girl must find a way to veer from her path of self destruction... and face the inevitable task of growing up.
2.
Set in Brighton in 1951, Wish You Were Here contrasts an England of post-war conformity with the free-spirited nature of a girl, Lynda, on the verge of womanhood, played by the then 17-year-old Emily Lloyd, giving one of the great screen debuts. Filled with youthful energy, good-natured yet delighting in shocking the prudish world around her, Lynda is innocently flirtatious and eager to discover sex. She can't quite understand why everyone disapproves so much, and the film expertly balances uproarious comedy with drama in what is essentially a complex character study. The second, darker half has shades of Lolita, with the excellent Tom Bell in the older man role, while Lynda herself in some ways anticipates Laura Dern's Rambling Rose (1991). Director David Leland also wrote the Brighton thriller, Mona Lisa (1986), and Personal Services (1987) based on the true story of the madam, Cynthia Payne. It is on Payne's own early memories, as told to Leland, that the fictional Wish You Were Here is partly based, while Leland went on to further explore female sexual awakening in The Land Girls (1997), again exploring female sexual awakening --Gary S. Dalkin
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