October 28, 1967 [Georgy Girl]

As Georgy Girl, Lynn Redgrave's rueful little grin seems uncomfortably familiar to me, like an unexpected glimpse of myself in a sudden mirror, an almost-cruelly objective revelation as I see myself without warning. And Georgy’s sad smile knows much--not the least that already Mod is waning: London in this movie is colorless and rain-spattered, far from Mary Quant’s swingin’ vision, a bit frayed at the edges and cut from cheap cloth.

Georgy's sad, almost-frightened slumped shoulders and uncertain advances into a larger world; her difficulty understanding where she belongs, what she must do; the efforts beset with exhausting delays and half-measures--these make her seem clear to me, real. Georgy searches for a firm place to stand, pursued by James Mason with just a touch of post-Lolita self-consciousness; and by her bully-boy sometime-boyfriend Jos, dance-hall-clownish but calculating and icy-eyed, who loves then leaves Georgy. She ends up with her flatmate’s (and Jos’s) baby--almost aborted, almost discarded--and the millionaire marries her, while Jos retreats, his posture also a bit slumped as he stands alone at the water’s edge.

At the end Georgy sits in her wedding-car, baby in arm, while Mason--having what he wants--fumbles, befuddled. Georgy stares ahead, her smile fading; but she no longer averts her eyes from a world that has disdained her pudgy face and blocky frame. The title song plays merrily along, a weird counterpoint (“You're rich, Georgy girl!") to Redgrave's solemn--Sad? Resolute? (Hard to tell)--face, motoring toward her version of adulthood.