Review of Gregory's Girl (1980) by Brian R — 15 Nov 2010

"Christ, you're worse than my dad. He's old - at least he's got an excuse for being a prick!".

I first saw this film at school. The teacher fast-forwarded the first three minutes, thus ensuring that we missed the opening scene where Gregory and his friends spy on a nurse stripping off in her bedroom. But it's not a coarse or seedy film by any means, far from it. No other film comes close to it in the way that it captures the excitement, confusion and agony of young love. It's a brilliantly observed, warm-hearted coming-of-age comedy. John Gordon Sinclair will never surpass his performance as Gregory, the gauche teenager who falls for Dorothy, his replacement in the football team. All of the cast deserve great praise, from Robert Buchanan as Andy ("We saw a great thing last week you know, a nurse up at the hostel, tits, bum, fanny, the lot...") to Chic Murray as the Headmaster. Bizarrely, the drab utilitarian Cumbernauld backdrop only heightens the romance and poetry of the film, of which there is an abundance - director Bill Forsyth understands the potency and humour in the idioms of scottish youth perfectly and uses them to great effect.