On K List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)

---

A Kind of Loving (1962)

Rate: 6
Viewed: 4/25

4/25: A Kind of Loving?

I don't think so. It's more of A Kind of Trap. I've never been a fan of Alan Bates, but he's not bad here, trying his best to make something out of nothing in a slow, static picture. Making her screen debut, June Ritchie is average and has no acting chops which explains why her movie career didn't last long. Thora Hird steals the show as the domineering mother-in-law.

Because of the themes to punctuate the British New Wave, I prefer Room at the Top and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The messages come across through them more effectively. Sure, it has nudity, marriage for convenience's sake, miscarriage, and ideas of divorce, but I was rather bored by them all. No matter what, Denys Coops' black-and-white cinematography of Northwest England is stunning.

Ingrid was trouble from the start. When she brought her friend along for the date, that should've told Vic plenty. He's only enamored of Ingrid because of her blond hair. Then again, he would read a book on how to have sex. To marry her is to marry her mother, and predictably, it turns into an institution. I hated when his relatives told him to suck it up and live with the consequences. My answer is: divorce the bitch and move on; who needs it? Of course, they want him to be miserable as well. I would've strangled her mother in no time.

All in all, I laughed at the end of A Kind of Loving when it said, "All characters and events in this film are fictitious and any similarity to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental"; talk about the biggest irony of the century when it comes to the British.

---