Movie review – “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (1978) ***

Robert Zemeckis’ debut feature didn’t meet with public favour and when I first saw this I was a bit surprised – it was about four likeable teenagers, had plenty of plot and narrative drive, was well directed, etc. But watching it a second time the reasons seem a bit clearer – it’s a bit of a stressful experience to watch the movie, people are always having a bad time (getting kicked out of places, etc), the actors don’t really strike goals except for Wendie Jo Sperber, and there is a bewildering lack of romance (three of the four girls have opportunities for it – the fat chick doesn’t which is OK since it is hilarious and totally in character that Eddie Deezer would reject her because she said she’d wait for Paul and now goes back on it, but not the other two). Also some of it is uncomfortable – you keep waiting for the Bobby di Cicco character to do something nice but he keeps trying to trash the Beatles up to the end and isn’t very nice.