This movie came out when a new fascination with the science of psychology was all the rage, and this movie positions itself as a serious dissection of its female protagonist's mental state. What a crock!
That protagonist is played by Ann Todd, who is physically incapable of letting an emotion actually show on her face. She's abused, emotionally and physically, by friend of the family James Mason, who takes her in as his ward. A drippy plot has her deciding which of three men she's going to choose as the man to live her life with, or rather the movie decides for her since she seemingly has no volition of her own and no inner life. Then in the end she winds up with the abuser! Nice message to send there.
This movie is terrible. It's so funereally paced and so horribly acted by Todd that it's virtually unwatchable. Mason is fine, but he plays an utterly gross and despicable character who has no arc of his own. With this crackpot jackass and a boring cipher played by an actress who couldn't act if her life depended on it as our two principal characters, who cares what happens? Answer: we don't.
Grade: F.
That protagonist is played by Ann Todd, who is physically incapable of letting an emotion actually show on her face. She's abused, emotionally and physically, by friend of the family James Mason, who takes her in as his ward. A drippy plot has her deciding which of three men she's going to choose as the man to live her life with, or rather the movie decides for her since she seemingly has no volition of her own and no inner life. Then in the end she winds up with the abuser! Nice message to send there.
This movie is terrible. It's so funereally paced and so horribly acted by Todd that it's virtually unwatchable. Mason is fine, but he plays an utterly gross and despicable character who has no arc of his own. With this crackpot jackass and a boring cipher played by an actress who couldn't act if her life depended on it as our two principal characters, who cares what happens? Answer: we don't.
Grade: F.