The Go-Between
Director: Joseph Losey
Year Released: 1970
Rating: 2.0
Ignorant pre-teen (Dominic Guard) acts as a courier for 'secret correspondence' between Julie Christie's aristocrat and Alan Bates' farmer - the boy doesn't understand what romance, love or class issues are all about, and this is supposedly his 'rude awakening.' As far as coming-of-age stories go, it's droll - Losey's approach is too distant to truly peer into the boy's psyche, which creates problems when the audience is supposed to be convinced he's scarred for life from it (oh, that guilt thing...). The flash-forwards (with Michael Redgrave) are awkwardly placed and vague - it's screenwriter Harold Pinter waving his Wand of Silence and Ambiguity over things.
