Cult movie which was very hard to see for a number of years, harming its reputation. It's about a 15 year old boy, John Moulder-Brown, who goes to work at a public swimming pool and becomes infatuated with co-worker Jane Asher. It was directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, who isn't very well known but has made something really unusual and special.
Most of the film is a two hander between Moulder Brown and Asher. Both are excellent - Mouler-Brown as the anxious, cocky, mixed up teen and Asher luminous as the sexy, charismatic, smart elder girl. I mainly knew about Asher from her "pretty girl" performances in various 60s films so this was a bit of a revelation; she's got presence and power, very seductive but likeable, and with a great monologue where she tells off a teacher who molested her. There's also some flashy support performances, including from a bloated Diana Dors.
There's this feeling of seediness and "wrong-ness" that permeates the film - bloated figures, dingy change rooms, porn cinemas, hookers with broken legs, dirty teachers who feel up kids, dirty swimming pools - plus trippy moments such as the long sequence where Mouler-Brown stalks Asher through the back streets. The women are mainly seductive sluts (even the teens) but the men are mainly lecherous exploiting beasts so it sort of evens out.
The tone of this varied - campy comedy, sensitive analysis of teenage crush, arty use of colour, tragic ending. It has aged very well, apart from the visits to dingy Soho - there's nothing else quite like it.
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