"I tried to kill myself." "Me too!" says Grant Goodeve in response to Linda Purl's confession in their Hospital psych ward. The way his face lights up when she tells him this is just odd, one of many awkward moments in this depressing TV movie that deals with the issues of growing up in a privileged household, with supposedly decent parents (Shirley Jones and Murray Hamilton), culminating with Purl taking an overdose of her mother's sleeping pills. When she shows up very despondent add dinner prior to the same, Jones goes into her daughter for having it all, and this leads Purl to run out of the room, having denied there was anything wrong then saying that she wanted to die. Her addiction to pills very obvious at this point, this is just another indication of how depression lingers way under the surface and can't always be spotted, and certainly can't always be explained. From the surface view, she does indeed seem like she has it all, but something is wrong. Seriously wrong.
An excellent performance by Tony Lo Bianco as Purl and Goodeve's compassionate doctor overshadows the melodramatic performances by the other actors, and it's a far cry from other darker roles I've seen him in such as "The Honeymoon Killers" and "God Told Me Too". Like Carolyn Jones as Puarl's mother in "Little Ladies of the Night", Shirley Jones is in complete denial over why her daughter has problems, and I'm sure this gave teenagers and parents the opportunity to look at each other more suspiciously as problems arose. Mom here obviously wants to try to help change things, but then she gets distracted by life and it's back to the status quo.
Goodeve has his own parental issues with father Morgan Woodard, but his storyline isn't as detailed as Purl's. The school atmosphere is very realistic with strict teachers all of a sudden realizing how they need to be more compassionate when the truth is revealed about changes in Purl, and there's a great beach party as well which features a song from "Saturday Night Fever" in the background. The way that she loses her confidence from the beginning scenes as a cheerleader and top student to walking along the hallway walls rather than in the middle with assured Look for a young Delta Burke in a smaller role as one of students trying to boost her spirits up. I wish however she had turned around to the other girl who intruded and told her to shut up after the girl eagerly tried to get out dirt about the suicide attempt. Powerful and realistic, difficult to get into, but ultimately triumphant because of the truths it reveals.
An excellent performance by Tony Lo Bianco as Purl and Goodeve's compassionate doctor overshadows the melodramatic performances by the other actors, and it's a far cry from other darker roles I've seen him in such as "The Honeymoon Killers" and "God Told Me Too". Like Carolyn Jones as Puarl's mother in "Little Ladies of the Night", Shirley Jones is in complete denial over why her daughter has problems, and I'm sure this gave teenagers and parents the opportunity to look at each other more suspiciously as problems arose. Mom here obviously wants to try to help change things, but then she gets distracted by life and it's back to the status quo.
Goodeve has his own parental issues with father Morgan Woodard, but his storyline isn't as detailed as Purl's. The school atmosphere is very realistic with strict teachers all of a sudden realizing how they need to be more compassionate when the truth is revealed about changes in Purl, and there's a great beach party as well which features a song from "Saturday Night Fever" in the background. The way that she loses her confidence from the beginning scenes as a cheerleader and top student to walking along the hallway walls rather than in the middle with assured Look for a young Delta Burke in a smaller role as one of students trying to boost her spirits up. I wish however she had turned around to the other girl who intruded and told her to shut up after the girl eagerly tried to get out dirt about the suicide attempt. Powerful and realistic, difficult to get into, but ultimately triumphant because of the truths it reveals.