Bruce Beresford’s proto-Mean Girls drama shines thanks to its teenage lead Susannah Fowle and Barry Humphries’ appearance in a deadly serious role
Rightly regarded as one of the finest films ever made about Australian adolescents, the director Bruce Beresford’s 1978 drama The Getting of Wisdom exists in a space unaffected by time. It’s hard to imagine the film’s themes – from puberty-related growing pains to repressive institutions and comparisons between small-town and big-city life – ever going out of fashion. And the story is so well told, with such attention to detail and an implicit understanding of the rhythms required for interesting drama, it has aged not a jot over three and a half decades.
Adapted from the author Henry Handel Richardson’s novel, the film is a tale about growing up, the title another spin on “coming of age”. And its central location, an exclusive Melbourne ladies college,...
Rightly regarded as one of the finest films ever made about Australian adolescents, the director Bruce Beresford’s 1978 drama The Getting of Wisdom exists in a space unaffected by time. It’s hard to imagine the film’s themes – from puberty-related growing pains to repressive institutions and comparisons between small-town and big-city life – ever going out of fashion. And the story is so well told, with such attention to detail and an implicit understanding of the rhythms required for interesting drama, it has aged not a jot over three and a half decades.
Adapted from the author Henry Handel Richardson’s novel, the film is a tale about growing up, the title another spin on “coming of age”. And its central location, an exclusive Melbourne ladies college,...
- 8/16/2015
- by Luke Buckmaster
- The Guardian - Film News
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