A KIND OF LOVING

Vic Brown, a designer from Lancashire, is attracted to Ingrid, a stenographer who works for the same company. After several dates, Vic realizes that he is not really in love with Ingrid, who has simple interests different from his own. But he does not resist his sexual attraction and seduces the girl one night, even though he notices that he did not bring his contraceptives with him. He is disappointed and decides to leave Ingrid. But when he meets her at a party some time later the girl tells him that she is pregnant. They marry and go to live with Ingrid's mother who is possessive and aggressive towards Vic. While returning from work one day, a neighbor tells him that Ingrid had a miscarriage and entered the hospital. When she is release, she refuses to have sexual relations with him. The situation gets heavier and heavier. After a drunken night, Vic decides to get out of there. He goes to the house of his sister who he is very fond of. But both his sister and his father scold him for his immaturity. Vic decides to find a house to rent for himself and Ingrid and to look for a satisfying kind of loving with her.

"This film is Schlesinger's first 'trespass' against Free Cinema. Most of his colleagues were mainly concerned with the working class. Meanwhile here, SchIesinger follows lowermiddleclass characters from the country. They are little people, almost insignificant except for the attention that the camera or better Schlesinger's 'eye' - gives to their problems. Vic and Ingrid do not have a great story to tell. It is just their own family mixture a marriage that sinks into boredom like many others, and their attempt at a come back at the very last moment. We will never know if they succeed in putting the already shattered relationship back on track, (The 'open' endings are typical of Schlesinger's films). The events of their lives flow away noiselessly. The black and white photography flattens out these lives and makes them seem like old shapshots collected carefully and put in calendar order in the family album, where records of ceremonies and important events are preserved.
This is the second 'trespass'. The film does not show the lower depths a degrading, squalid reality. There is no difference in Schlesinger's middleclass universe between highclass: and marginal neighborhoods. Everything becomes uniform. Everything is standardized according to the 'average' taste. Nancy Brooker writes that the factory where Vic and Ingrid work is modern and neat; and Vic's sister lives in a clean and graceful apartment, not in public housing. She adds that the plot's fragile realism is tempered by Schlesinger's 'humor' and 'warmth', but above all by his refusal to preach sermons." (Claver Salizzato, John SchIesinger, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1986, pp. 7273)

Director: John Schlesinger.
Screenplay: Willis Hall, Keith Waterhouse, dal romanzo di Stan Barstow.
Director of photography: Denys Coop.
Editor: Roger Cherrill.
Art director: Ray Simm, Maurice Fowler.
Music: Ron Grainer.
Sound: Don Sharpe, George Stephenson, Red Law.
Cast: Alan Bates (Vic Brown), June Ritchie (Ingrid Rothwell), Thora Hird (Mrs. Rothwell), Bert Palmer (Mr. Brown), Gwen Nelson (Mrs. Brown), Malcom Patton (Jim Brown), Pat Keen (Christine), David Mahlowe (David), Jack Smethurst (Conroy), James Bolam (Jeff), Michael Deacon (Les), John Romane, David Cook (disegnatori), Norman Heyes (Laisterdyke), Leonard Rossiter (Whymper), Fred Ferris (Mr. Althorpe), Patsy Rowlands (Dorothy), Annette Robertson (Phoebe), Ruth Porcher (Mrs. Keen), Henry Markham (l'uomo della ferrovia), Peter Madden (cancelliere), Katherine Staff (Mrs. Oliphant), Edna Ridgway (pianista del pub), Bryan Mosley (conduttore del bus), Jerry Desmonde (presentatore televisivo), Reginald Green (concorrente), Douglas Livingstone (pulitore di vetri)
Production company: Joseph Janni per la Vic Films/Waterhall Productions.