This film came out almost 20 years ago, but I am still going to include spoiler tags since plenty of people haven't seen it.
Minnie Driver is terrific as Benny, Chris O'Donnell is a perfect Jack, and it's lovely to see a young Aidan Gillan as Eve's rather awkward but sweet beau. I liked the movie when I watched it. It's very well-done, but the author (the movie is based on a Maeve Binchy novel) seems pretty judgey about sex.
I'm not saying she sides with the Catholic Church, the institution that torments poor Benny and makes her feel too guilty to have sex with the boy she loves and who loves her back. But in a more subtle way, she sides with the abstainers and paints them as more virtuous.
Nan, Benny's beautiful and ambitious friend, is the only one of the group who gives up her virginity. She does it for a wealthy local landlord, hoping to move up in the world. And who can blame her? Her family life is rough. She has a lot of siblings, they don't have any money (she is the most financially strapped of the friends), and her father is harsh. She wants something better.
The film doesn't explicitly judge Nan for sleeping with Simon. It is actually sympathetic to her, until it takes a turn. Nan betrays her friends by seducing sex-starved Jack and then pretending the baby is his, getting a proposal out of him. This is working until Eve figures out her due date and literally pulls a knife on her. She is disgraced, cast out of the circle, and that's it.
I felt like it wasn't a coincidence that the only girl who chose to have sex was also the "Big Bad" of the movie, a liar, betrayer and manipulator. Yes, she was desperate and the film does show that. But we can't help but hate her for it, can we?
By making Nan do something so low-down, the story casts a poor light on sexually active young women. I don't think Binchy did it intentionally or knowingly, but it's there nonetheless.
I've read one of her other books, whose title I don't recall, and the same thing kind of happens in that one too. Yes, the main character, Maria, has premarital sex, but she is in LOVE with her man. She's young and innocent, and he loves her and marries her when she gets pregnant. But he gets bored and his eye wanders to a younger woman who wears pink mini-skirts and sleeps with a married man. Maria is an avid baker, as wholesome as they come, despite having had sex before marriage. The mistress is portrayed as....less than wholesome.
It's hard to explain, exactly, but it really did bug me that the story treated the characters the way it did. I mean, did she have to make the only sexually active woman the one who was also a back-stabbing liar? I feel like she didn't.
Minnie Driver is terrific as Benny, Chris O'Donnell is a perfect Jack, and it's lovely to see a young Aidan Gillan as Eve's rather awkward but sweet beau. I liked the movie when I watched it. It's very well-done, but the author (the movie is based on a Maeve Binchy novel) seems pretty judgey about sex.
I'm not saying she sides with the Catholic Church, the institution that torments poor Benny and makes her feel too guilty to have sex with the boy she loves and who loves her back. But in a more subtle way, she sides with the abstainers and paints them as more virtuous.
Nan, Benny's beautiful and ambitious friend, is the only one of the group who gives up her virginity. She does it for a wealthy local landlord, hoping to move up in the world. And who can blame her? Her family life is rough. She has a lot of siblings, they don't have any money (she is the most financially strapped of the friends), and her father is harsh. She wants something better.
The film doesn't explicitly judge Nan for sleeping with Simon. It is actually sympathetic to her, until it takes a turn. Nan betrays her friends by seducing sex-starved Jack and then pretending the baby is his, getting a proposal out of him. This is working until Eve figures out her due date and literally pulls a knife on her. She is disgraced, cast out of the circle, and that's it.
I felt like it wasn't a coincidence that the only girl who chose to have sex was also the "Big Bad" of the movie, a liar, betrayer and manipulator. Yes, she was desperate and the film does show that. But we can't help but hate her for it, can we?
By making Nan do something so low-down, the story casts a poor light on sexually active young women. I don't think Binchy did it intentionally or knowingly, but it's there nonetheless.
I've read one of her other books, whose title I don't recall, and the same thing kind of happens in that one too. Yes, the main character, Maria, has premarital sex, but she is in LOVE with her man. She's young and innocent, and he loves her and marries her when she gets pregnant. But he gets bored and his eye wanders to a younger woman who wears pink mini-skirts and sleeps with a married man. Maria is an avid baker, as wholesome as they come, despite having had sex before marriage. The mistress is portrayed as....less than wholesome.
It's hard to explain, exactly, but it really did bug me that the story treated the characters the way it did. I mean, did she have to make the only sexually active woman the one who was also a back-stabbing liar? I feel like she didn't.