8/10
the good, the bad and the lovely
25 May 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I ordered this on video through my overseas mailing service and it was easy to get a hold of to rent. Starring Rita Tushingham and Peter Finch, and based upon a novel by Edna O'Brien. My mail order contact told me he was one of Rita Tushingham's old boyfriends, which impressed me very much and for some reason made me biased toward liking the film.

The film is set in Dublin and the Irish countryside nearby, where the people are, shall we say, strict about certain matters. Tushingham plays an impressionable young girl bored with her life at home on an Irish farm. She moves to Dublin and shares a flat with a best friend (wonderfully played by Lyn Redgrave). She meets and becomes attracted to Finch's sophisticated author. They have a very touching romance, much to the chagrin of the local Irish louts who consider the pair as deeply suspicious and sinners in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Girl With Green Eyes was shot on location in Ireland and has a wonderful feeling for the people even when they are being intolerant and brutish.

Tushingham and Finch are both appealing and bring a wonderful reality to their parts. The fate of their romance is left up in the air as Finch decides to go back to his wife and Tushingham refusing to go back to live on her father's farm, set on living her own life. In between, their relationship is portrayed with a great amount of tenderness and it is a lovely film for those of us who are romantics at heart.

Peter Finch is photographed in a particularly flattering way. He looks spectacularly handsome in this, with a swathe of grey hair and a face that has seen a lot of living. And what a marvellous voice he had, it is totally unlike any other. And lo and behold, he was also an Australian. 'Girl with Green Eyes' is a small but precious gem to be treasured and absolutely recommended if you're feeling less pre-occupied with matters of the mind, and more with matters of the heart.
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