School Hols

By R. S.

EXPERIENCE PREFERRED . . . BUT NOT ESSENTIAL

Directed by Peter Duffell

Screenplay by June Roberts

Guess what Annie did on her summer vacation the year before she started college? Yes, of course, you're right. And on the first try too.

As for the entirely unsordid details, they are as follows: the setting was the slightly less than grand Grand Hotel on the Welsh seacoast, where she took a job as a waitress; the lucky fellow was the cute young Scottish chef, who was patient, kind and wise about the whole business. As was Annie, come to think of it. Since the weather was uniformly fine and their mates on the hotel staff, being lower class and English, were politely eccentric, it is hard to see anything about the experience that was unpleasant. Even sitting through the rather dim and distant movie about that long-ago event (the film is set in 1962) can hardly be classed as a chore.

On the other hand, it is not much fun. Though Elizabeth Edmonds could not be sweeter in the leading role, and everyone around her is genial enough, the movie does not quite deserve its promotional association with such predecessors as Gregory's Girl and Local Hero. For it lacks the wayward exuberance and quirkiness of those small delights. No inexplicable motorcyclist or man in a penguin suit is permitted to wander through Director Duffell's tidy frames. Nor are any brief, enlivening emotional squalls that might stir up those placid waters. The result is rather like a nice day at the beach: nothing wrong with it, but nothing much you can remember about it either. Sheer inoffensiveness should not be enough to recommend a film; if that is one's only criterion, better to stay home and read Barbara Pym, who achieves that goal with wit and style to spare.

--R.S. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.