1971 Directed by Joseph Sargent
Dennie has returned from a year among the hippies to her superficial, image-conscious suburban family. She must face their disapproval of her actions. They refuse to even try to understand. She must also deal with an ex-lover, and a beloved young sister who is following in her footsteps, wanting the idealistic hippie life but making some rash decisions in the process.
USA
USA
Drugs are bad? Teenagers are dangerous and we don't understand them?? *jumps out window*??
This is pretty much the entire film.
The Linda Ronstadt soundtrack is nice though.
One of those black sheep movies about drug addiction that is so of its time. Since it is a television film from the early seventies, the cinematography lacks refinement, but director Joseph Sargent does not display much creativity. Screenwriter Bruce Feldman does not offer much insight or nuance either, so the work comes across as blandly superficial. Sally Field and Linda Ronstadt deserved better. Actually, David Carradine deserved better too. Prediction: no reader had heard of this project until they read this review. Good. The movie is a waste of time.
An odd made-for-TV Movie of the Week about a runaway teenage hippie girl who returns home to her parents after a long absence. Mixed feelings and family drama ensue. I couldn’t really connect with this, but an attempt was made to interject some cinematic style and avant-garde editing techniques. The cast is full of big Hollywood names and everybody likes Sally Field, right? I do. The soundtrack features songs by Linda Ronstadt. This is by no means a good movie, not even close, but it may hold some interest as a curio that’s very much a product of its time.
In this ABC television movie, Sally Field plays Dennie Miller, a young hippie returning to her suburban home after some time living footloose and fancy free on the highways and byways of America. The film is surprisingly subversive, and the clear message is that the grass (pun intended) isn't greener on the other side, and life just stinks all around for everyone, whether you're trying to succeed in the corporate rat race or embrace free love or just get through high school. I mostly watched this for David Carradine as the dirtbag degenerate thief of a boyfriend. He does run through a glass door in a meth-induced haze, so there's that.
Not mind blowing or radical in its message, even for 1971, but a solid TV movie theme elevated by incredibly assured, even experimental direction from Jack Sargent. Fractured editing, disorientation, flashbacks mixed with unclear flashforwards. Just amazing that these talented people were just kicking around making little TV projects like this. The results can be varied but every so often you get interesting, innovative, sometimes confused works (but hell, who cares about that last part?) that shape common stories into strange and always memorable experiences. As per, I won't be heaping this on the forgettable pile.
So people dislike that this movie is...anti-meth? I understand the craving for nuance and subtlety, but dealing with methamphetamines is not the time nor place for that. Absolutely insane the pea-brained takes you'll find on here.
This is my first time seeing Sally Field as anything but a mom and it's wild. She's really good. Very believable. People love complaining about this film, it seems, but I was really into all the technical aspects. Very dreamy and hypnotic. A slow-moving train, chugging languorously towards a bleak demise. This walked so Requiem for a Dream could run. Absolutely tragic and dysfunctional - a candy-coated nightmare of upper middle class suburbia.
A fascinating but flawed time capsule of the generational gap in the early-'70s, this ABC Movie of the Week has some special touches that make it stand out, but the narrative is on the weaker side. Sally Field plays a teenager who has returned home to her suburban family (Jackie Cooper, Eleanor Parker & Lane Bradbury) after having run away to the hippie lifestyle. She tries her best to assimilate back into her old ways, but her family is so uptight about everything that it is a Herculean task. I will say it can be a difficult film to sit through simply because the actors' performances, good as they are, are incredibly shrill and often pitched to excessive heights in the…
A real “downer”, Sally Field comes “across the country” (California to California) from living her freaky haight st life to her square family & her miserable younger sister. Come for a tale of warmth and redemption, stay for 70 minutes of ghoulish, unrelenting, bickering. Great, ambitious, filmmaking.
If you like to watch screaming anxious people, this one’s for you. Not quite Places in the Heart or Steel Magnolias, but I enjoyed seeing the clothing and interior design of authentic 1971.
An ABC Movie of the week, putting the mellow in melodrama. Jackie Cooper wears a turtleneck.
