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Gregory's Girl

Gregory's Girl

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Outstanding coming-of-age movie
Review: A fantastic movie. Very charming and romantic. Proves once and for all that you can make a great movie without sex, violence, or car chases. The story is timeless, and the emotions really hit home. I saw this way back in the 1980's and absolutely loved it then. Since then, I've been searching for it in the rental stores, but never finding it. Maybe I'll break down and buy the darn thing. Highly recommended for all age groups.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A trip down 'Memory Lane'
Review: Although the film is essentially a romantic comedy, the film addresses a problem that some girls in Scotland were facing, ie being unwelcome participants on the soccer field. I first watched this film when I was a little older than Hepburn and felt strongly connected to it at the time. It embodied the awkwardness of teen romance, the discrimination against female involvment in a male dominated sport, typical Scottish humour, and unusually, depicted High school life extremely accurately (which was great as it was filmed a few miles from my own school)Even Hepburn's hair style was the exact same as mine had been at that age (yuck). The characters are SO like the friends I had at school that I felt I knew ever one of them intimately.
I now live in USA and have a daughter in Varsity Soccer (Footie)and while I pine for Scotland at times, I know that she's having the oportunity to enjoy Soccer in a way and to a level that she never would have discovered if we were still in Scotland. There are always compromises and rewards in life.
I will be buying this video as soon as it is available for my daughters to enjoy (They're still friends with all their school chums in Scotland) and for my husband and I to wallow in sentimentality.
This film is charming, funny, entertaining and faithful to it's characters.
It'll be interesting to get feedback from my kids' American friends, watch this space.
Do any of you know what happened to any of these actors?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I've loved this movie for years!
Review: An edited version of the screenplay for this movie appears in a literature series for Middle Schoolers in the US, and I've had the pleasure of teaching "Gregory's Girl" for about ten years now. I love the characters--Susan is my favorite--and I never get tired of reading the screenplay and watching the film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A sweet, quirky romantic comedy.
Review: Anyone who has seen this film cannot help but be struck by the innocence and awkwardness of our hero, gregory, who is in love. Many men can relate to Gregory's utter feeling of befuddlement on how to attract the girl of his dreams. There in lies the emotional connection that so many have with Bill Forsythe's low budget pleaser. Gregory's Girl is a leisurely stroll down memory lane, as we recount our days of uncertainty in trying to court the fairer sex.
This is one of my all-time favs, but watch out for the penguin!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Maybe the best film about young love?
Review: Finally, "Gregory's Girl" is out on DVD... I can throw away my worn out old VHS copy. There are several surprising things about this DVD for Americans who are accustomed to the cable or VHS version of the movie... First, many small scenes were edited out of the US version. Why? I can't tell... The scenes seem harmless enough. However, the biggest shock on this DVD is the original Scottish soundtrack. All these years, those dozens and dozens of viewings, those classic lines that are stuck in my head ("It's a well known fact.")... They simply sound BETTER in the original dialogue. What studio executive pinhead thought it would be a good idea to re-record the dialogue with more British-sounding voices? The moral of the story here is: Watch this DVD with the Scottish soundtrack and it will almost be like watching a new movie. And I thank the non-pinheads at MGM for including both audio versions so we could make the choice.

This movie is, quite simply, a beautifully crafted, intelligent, witty, sweet look at awkward adolescence. I never tire of it, and now that it's on DVD I know I'll never wear it out.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Maybe the best film about young love?
Review: Finally, "Gregory's Girl" is out on DVD... I can throw away my worn out old VHS copy. There are several surprising things about this DVD for Americans who are accustomed to the cable or VHS version of the movie... First, many small scenes were edited out of the US version. Why? I can't tell... The scenes seem harmless enough. However, the biggest shock on this DVD is the original Scottish soundtrack. All these years, those dozens and dozens of viewings, those classic lines that are stuck in my head ("It's a well known fact.")... They simply sound BETTER in the original dialogue. What studio executive pinhead thought it would be a good idea to re-record the dialogue with more British-sounding voices? The moral of the story here is: Watch this DVD with the Scottish soundtrack and it will almost be like watching a new movie. And I thank the non-pinheads at MGM for including both audio versions so we could make the choice.

This movie is, quite simply, a beautifully crafted, intelligent, witty, sweet look at awkward adolescence. I never tire of it, and now that it's on DVD I know I'll never wear it out.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Funny movie
Review: Gregory (Gordon John Sinclair) is an awkward teenager living in Scotland. He likes to play the drums, spend time with his friends and play football (otherwise known as soccer in the United States). He lives with his parents and younger sister in a modest house.

His football couch approaches him and tells him that they need new blood in the team, and hints of the idea of kicking him off the team. Gregory, who is in the midst of puberty, is now gangly and can't play the sport as well as before, is nervous about his potential ousting of the team. At the football trials, in walks in their latest team member, Dorothy (Dee Hepburn). What starts with fear and frustration about possibly being bumped from the football team, turns into love at first sight.

This movie depicts secondary school life where teenagers are awkward, and unsure of themselves in most aspects of their lives. We see glimpses of Gregory's fellow schoolmates as they too try to catch girls' attentions, by trying to impress them with their vast intelligence, "it's a well-known fact that when you sneeze, it comes out of your nose at 100 miles an hour...". The movie is humorous and light-hearted as it shows us how Gregory tries to catch the girl of his dreams, Dorothy, the one with "the hair, the teeth and the smell".

There is another humorous interaction between Gregory and his father, who is a driving instructor. Gregory is crossing the street, without looking both ways, when his father is trying to teach a man how to drive. In the process, his father has to tell the driver to swerve to the left and right and do an emergency stop to avoid hitting Gregory, who has his hand on the hood of the car running backwards trying to avoid getting hit! Gregory's father asks Gregory if he remembers his mother and tells him how she had been asking about him. Playfully, he asks Gregory if they can make a date for breakfast in the kitchen on Friday at 8! This scene brought back memories as a teenager where I spent most of my time in my room daydreaming about life, and never seeing my parents too. But they way Gregory's father handles Gregory was wonderful.

Another hilarious moment, is when Gregory is in the changing room getting dressed from his football practice, when Dorothy comes into the changing room. Gregory has no shirt on, so he uses his index fingers to cover his nipples!

Gregory's 10-year old sister, Madeline, appears and tries to help Gregory make the change from awkward teenager, to young man in love. She teaches him how to spend more time thinking of the color of his clothes. She gives him advice on how to ask her out. It is very funny to watch Gregory listen intently to her as his younger sister advises him when she clearly is still a child, yet very wise beyond her years.

The movie has an interesting ending when Dorothy stands him up and he sees Carol, then Margo, then Susan, who actually has had a crush on him from the start.

If you would like to see a cheerful, entertaining movie without a lot of profanity, drugs, sex or violence, then this is the movie for you.

A small interesting factoid is, Clare Grogan (the actress who plays Susan in this film) used to be the lead singer to a New Wave band in the 80's called Altered Images.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: OK, a sort of a date
Review: Gregory's Girl is a great film because the Scottish characters are so upbeat. No Trainspotter types here. Only beautiful naivetee and the Scottish humor it brings. Gregory wants a date with Dorothy, but Susan has other plans. I relate to this film because it shows how youth is supposed to be, not the usual hellish scenarios, but falling in love with zero negativity and much quirkiness. No meanness, no headgames, no Valley Girls, no Fratboys, just cool Scots.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Charming
Review: Gregory's Girl is a sweet, graceful little coming of age movie. It's as quirkily funny as anything you'll see, and it totally lacks the crassness of Hollywood products that try to use the same young crush material. (I saw G.G., originally, in the theater, and I remember the American equivalent at the time was a series of John Hughes movies. Next to this, "Sixteen Candles" is predictable and pretty mean.)

Bill Forsyth as a director had (has?)a really special way with character. The plots of his movies go off in unexpected directions, and you get the sense that he's really letting the characters decide how things work out. That works really well with the young teenagers in this movie. The plot's being driven along by the decisions, by the logic, of high school students; you really get into their heads, and it's SUCH a funny, awkward-smiling, self-deprecating place to be... Gregory's pining for his soccer darling, Dorothy, isn't going where you think it will, and it's just flawless the way the viewer figures that out along with the character. It's perfectly timed.

If you love this movie, if you remember lines about Caracas and numbers of Elephants and that sort of thing afterward, you should try Local Hero. They make a great double feature. (You'll speak whatever accent you have with a burr after seeing them together, too.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Scottish comedy made me smile and laugh and remember
Review: Gregory's Girl is one of those "Comedies from the British Isles" that I put in the same general category as "Calendar Girls" and "Waking Ned Devine" and "The Full Monty".

The humor across the ocean is a little different than in the US and if you're not willing to tune your ear to the wonderful cadences of a Scottish Brogue, then bypass Gregory and his girls.

But for those willing to wade in - Gregory's Girl presents an opportunity to be delighted with little to offend (if you discount the opening scene where Gregory and his buddies are voyeuristically peeping at a local nurse undressing from outside her window - there is a moment of scant nudity seen from afar.)

Gregory (played with full teenaged awkwardness by John Gordon Sinclair) reminds us that there is little more awkward and gangly than a tall teenager, but this Gregory has a good sense of humor about himself and his inadequacies.

Made in 1980 in the days before political correctness Dee Hepburn as Dorothy enters Gregory's world as a girl trying out for Gregory's football (soccer) team - specifically, she is trying out for Gregory's position because he's not scoring any goals and his team has lost 8 games in a row.

There are plenty of "girls can't play" comments before it becomes apparent that Dorothy is the most talented player among the bunch. Rather than being threatened by her a Dorothy craze sweeps the school and she finds herself being interviewed by the school paper and bootleg photos of her are being sold by enterprising students. Gregory falls for Dorothy as well - hard - and perhaps because of their sports connection he seems to think himself more suited for her than the other blokes.

Gregory is gangly and awkward, though, and the scenes where we see Gregory getting romantic advice and trying to make himself more desirable are accurate and hilarious.

Will Gregory make a hit with Dorothy? Well - get the movie and find out!


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