There are some films that you immediately love, some films you grow to love, and some films that you not only grow to love, but also grow to appreciate rewatching, because of everything it delivers throughout multiple viewings. Gregory’s Girl isn’t a film I immediately warmed to, mainly because I saw it before I had gone through a number of moments that would make it more relatable. I grew to love it though, and every subsequent viewing has made me love it a little bit more.
It focuses on Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair), a Scottish teenager going through the usual trials and tribulations of any schoolboy in the 1980s. His main interests seem to be football and girls, which leads to him feeling very conflicted when it looks as if he might lose his place on the school football team to Dorothy (Dee Hepburn). Dorothy is both attractive and very good at football, but will she take a liking to Gregory? Will Gregory, meanwhile, notice that Susan (Clare Grogan) has taken a liking to him?
Feeling both wonderfully surreal and yet beautifully observed and authentic, Gregory’s Girl is one of many brilliant works from writer-director Bill Forsyth that uses specific characters and locations to tell a story that appeals to a high percentage of viewers. We may not have all grown up as a teenager in Scotland (okay, I did, but I appreciate that many others didn’t), but we’ve all navigated those tricky years of trying to engage with members of the opposite sex while also being absolutely terrified of them. Some manage it better than others, but it’s a scary time.
While Sinclair, Hepburn, and Grogan all do well in their roles, and are supported in scenes by equally wonderful turns from Robert Buchanan, Caroline Guthrie, and Allison Forster, Forsyth allows time for some of the older cast members - Jake D’Arcy, Chic Murray, Dave Anderson, and Maeve Watt - to get involved with some of the highlights of the film. If I start making scenes then I won’t stop, but one early treat is the conversation that Gregory has with his dry-witted father during a driving lesson (Gregory is outside the car, having caused the young man that his father is teaching to have to conduct an unplanned emergency stop).
Whether you’re watching a young boy waddle around the school dressed as a penguin, learning about the amount of cornflakes that are driven daily along the busiest road shown in the film, or just watching a young man put his school shirt back on before applying deodorant to the material beneath his armpits, Gregory’s Girl is full of treats from start to finish. Local Hero may be the film that many view as Forsyth’s best work (helped by the gorgeous location and that beautiful score), but it’s Gregory’s Girl that does the better job of mixing film moments with plenty of details that resonate with authenticity. The only reason I don’t rate it as a perfect film is because I eagerly await what extra details I will notice during my next viewing.
Great performances all round, a script that may well be perfect, and unfussy direction from Forsyth. It may seem very dated now, in some ways, but Gregory’s Girl has themes at the heart of it that are, for better or for worse, quite timeless. And it makes me SO glad that I never have to be a teenager again.
9/10
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