If you want to watch a movie before you end it all, this is the one!
A very nitty gritty, grimy drama looking at the worst side of life in the 1970's, a kind of sequel to Poor Cow (1967). It has a higher rating than it deserves, some people look deeply into it to find hidden meanings and metaphors, maybe it makes them feel intelligent ? For me it is a dreary film which just made me feel depressed, maybe it worked in its day (early 1970's) but not anymore, I lived through this period as a boy in Northern England, I had soul destroying problems at the time, it was never this bad or grimy.
Carol White plays a slightly disturbed, miserable cow, who has made all the wrong choices in life, as a single mum, living with her ailing mother (no Father or Father of her baby appear), it s all very despairing, she has a few (more) self-destroying 'relationships' her baby dies, followed by her mother. I am not sympathetic with the character because she herself creates most of the problems she has. Maybe some people suffer from lives like this in real life, but do we really need to see it all compressed into one 1hr 45 min film.
Carol White acts well, but she is the only one, everyone else seems a bit wooden, or maybe dumbfounded by the kind of role they have to play, Roy Harper was poor, he is a Musician not an actor and it shows, his music is not that good either, his biggest claim to fame being a backing voice for Pink Floyd for a very short time, if this was his shot at acting stardom, it failed miserably.
The editing was poor, also continuity, the close-up and ultra close-up shots are a put off with me, I have never liked them, as you miss so much of the real picture, it feels like it was made on the cheap, very cheap, but unlike some films which are made cheap but are successful, this is not one of them.
This film seems to mirror Carol White's real life a little, she had a number of relationships, 3 short marriages, had problems with drugs and alcohol, tried to commit suicide several times and died at 48 with liver disease.
