Gregory’s Girl (1980) Samuel Goldwyn/Comedy RT: 91 minutes Rated PG (brief nudity, some language/sexual conversation) Director: Bill Forsyth Screenplay: Bill Forsyth Music: Colin Tully Cinematography: Michael Coulter Release date: May 26, 1982 (US) Cast: Gordon John Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Clare Grogan, Jake D’Arcy, Alex Norton, Chic Murray, John Bett, David Anderson, Robert Buchanan, Allison Forster, William Greenlees, Caroline Guthrie, Alan Love, Carol Macartney, Douglas Sannachan, Graham Thompson. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ****
Let’s jump in the Wayback Machine and go back to summer ’82 when teens flocked to see raunchy comedies like Porky’s, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Zapped. In doing so, they passed up the delightful coming-of-age comedy Gregory’s Girl. The Scottish import, written and directed by Bill Forsyth (Local Hero), is a direct counterpoint to the sleazy American teen comedies with their far-fetched pranks and coarse treatment of sex. Whereas they tend to objectify and/or humiliate girls, Gregory’s Girl dares to treat them as actual flesh-and-blood people. In the early 80s, that was a bold move.
Gregory’s Girl centers on a 16YO lad named Gregory (Sinclair, That Sinking Feeling), an awkward sort who towers over his classmates due to a recent growth spurt. He reminds one of a stork. He still hasn’t figured out how to navigate his new body. His recent loss of coordination costs him his position on the school soccer team. Adding to his embarrassment, he’s replaced by a girl named Dorothy (Hepburn) who happens to be a very good player. She quickly becomes the team’s star player. Instead of being resentful, Gregory falls in love with her. Or so he thinks. Like his friends, he’s just learning about girls and has no idea what he’s doing. He spends most of the movie trying to work up the nerve to ask her out. When he finally does, she accepts. What happens to Gregory next is most unexpected and sweet.
What makes Gregory’s Girl so wonderful is how well it gets teenagers, particularly boys. Porky’s and its wave of imitators give the impression that teen boys have sex on the brain all the time. No doubt some of them do, but it’s not true of all of them. A majority of teen boys are just as puzzled by the opposite sex as Gregory and his mates. They’re awkward around girls either not knowing what to say or saying the wrong thing. Take Gregory’s friend Andy (Buchanan), a diminutive lad whose idea of a pick-up line is explaining how veal is made to a couple of girls in the cafeteria. Gregory’s one up on him. He simply doesn’t know how to go about asking Dorothy out on a first date even though he claims to be in love with her. Thankfully, his sister Madeline (Forster) is there to help with that. At the tender age of ten, she already has a better handle on the subject than her clueless older brother.
In addition, Gregory’s Girl proves beyond any reasonable doubt that girls mature faster than boys. When it comes to teen romance, boys flail about helplessly while girls tend to retain some perspective. Most often, girls are ahead of boys in their analysis of any given situation. Dorothy gets that Gregory has a huge crush on her. She’s kind and patient, yet distant. She knows something he doesn’t. She and her friends have something special in mind for the first date. One of them points out, “It’s just the way girls work. They help each other.”
It’s nice to see a teen movie that doesn’t depict girls as objects of humiliation or bubble-brained bimbos. In fact, Gregory’s Girl stays away from teen archetypes altogether. There are no super studs, fat slobs, sluts or nerds. These are real teens, believable in their self-consciousness about every one of their perceived faults. Gregory is a likable dork who babbles when faced with an awkward situation. The movie treats his infatuation with respect and good humor. In fact, the whole of Gregory’s Girl is in good humor. There’s none of the mean-spiritedness that defines most teen comedies. It’s only mildly concerned with sex. The boys don’t obsess over losing their virginity. They’re not out to “score”. They don’t scheme to catch girls in a state of undress. The closest it gets to something like that is the opening scene where some of the guys hide in some bushes to watch an attractive older woman get undressed through her window. In the capable hands of Forsyth, it comes off as funny instead of smarmy.
The entire cast of Gregory’s Girl does a wonderful job, but I’m especially fond of Forster’s performance as wise-beyond-her-years younger sister Madeline. This kid is 10 going on 30. In just a few scenes, she commands the viewer’s attention as she advises Gregory on proper dating etiquette despite not having any particular interest in boys. Sinclair is painfully perfect as gawky Gregory, a good-natured kind of guy unaware of anything beyond his crush. Hepburn is terrific as Dorothy, a smart, mature, articulate, agile, attractive and personable young woman. She’s the type of girl we all wished we had the courage to speak to in high school. Jake D’Arcy (Still Game) has some funny moments as the socially inept coach who doesn’t quite know what to make of the girl who wants to play a boy’s sport. It seems that some adults never grow out of their teenage awkwardness.
In the end, Gregory’s Girl is about that innocent kind of first love all teenagers experience. “Innocent” is the key word here. First love should be innocent. It should be about taking walks, eating chips, dancing in the park and kissing at the end of a date. It doesn’t have to be about going all the way. Forsyth totally gets it. The result is this gem of a movie. Everything about it is spot-on perfect. The viewer is treated to a simple score by Colin Tully rather than a Top 40 soundtrack. It augments the movie’s sweet tone. It’s one of the most delightful teen movies I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.
