Little Darlings
Review by David Bjerre
Genre: GirlieTalk
Keywords:
Summer camp, BFF, loss of virginity.
Did you know that...
Kristy McNichol was originally considered for the part of Amanda Whurlitzer in "The Bad News Bears" (1976), but she lost out to Tatum O'Neal.
INTRODUCTION
While "Little Horny Soon-to-be-Grown-Up Girls" might have been a better title for this distinctly '80s film, the actual title chosen does capture the innocent, naive mindset from which this deeply disturbing story springs to life.
THE STORY
It's summer and young girls all over the country gather at Camp Little Wolf somewhere in a particular picturesque region of America. The girls come from vastly different backgrounds, but two of them quickly stand out: The tough-talking feisty Angel, who is never seen without a cigarette in her mouth and the prissy Ferris, who obviously comes from money. We're barely minutes into the film before these two girls are at each other's throats.
Of course with so many teen girls gathered in the same place, the talk quickly turns to sex. Outspoken vixen Cinder, reveals that she "hit a home run" at fourteen (you know, not just first, second or whatever base). She quickly exposes both Angel and Ferris as virgins and proposes a contest: Which one of them can lose her virginity first? The rest of the girls quickly get in on the bet and soon the game is on! Ferris - on advice from her experienced mentor Cinder - concentrates her attention on the camp's coach Gary, meanwhile Angel manages to zero in on a young boy, Randy, from a nearby boys camp.
During the coming weeks the girls will learn some important lessons about love and sex, and when the camp is over one of them will emerge victoriously as a woman. Whatever that really means.
REVIEW
There's something so wrong about "Little Darlings", yet there's something so right as well. This is the kind of film that simply wouldn't be made today. Even though "American Pie" - a film "Little Darlings" predates about two decades - got away with a far more rauncy plot, the real concern here is the sense of reality. While "American Pie" was content to let its cast of 20-year olds goof around and simply act like teens, with little or no real-life implications, "Little Darlings" feels like the real deal. The film keeps a straight face and plays more like a drama than the bubbly teen comedy the images would suggest. It dares to suggest that teenage girls are every bit as horny and preoccupied with sex as teenage boys. And every bit as confused.
The center of attention is the two leads, played by Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol. When "Little Darlings" premiered in 1980 both actresses where coming up fast. The sky was the limit! And even though McNichol would later get to star in cult favorite "The Pirate Movie" neither of the girls made much of an impact in the following years, O'Neal went as far as quitting acting all together in the late '90s. Both girls are incredible here, though. They're cute as hell - and they can actually act.
Even though O'Neal is the one with the Oscar, McNichol comes off best. Her scenes with Matt Dillon - who looks like he's 8, by the way (he was really 16) - as Randy are magnetic and ring true on every level. From his confusion as to whether this girl really wants to do it or not, to her realization that making love without being in love might not be a good idea.
While McNichol confronts the cold hard reality of losing ones virginity, O'Neal is charged with acting out the fantasy part of the ordeal as she attempts to court the 30 year old coach, played by Armand Assante (I never knew he had been this young). She desperately pursues the fairy tale version of the encounter that she has in her mind, not realizng just how far removed from reality it is.
By juxtaposing the two girls' experiences like this the film manages to look at the whole problem of "doing it for the first time" from several angles, and it perfectly captures the girls' ambivalent feelings towards sex. This strange thing they know they're supposed to do and they know they're supposed to like, but they don't really want to.
At first it may seem as if the film actually encourages sexual relations, regardless of the consequences, but it soon becomes apparent that despite the initial impression, the film is very much aware of the ramifications of this act and has no intention of pulling the punches it's about to give the girls. They get to make their own mistakes and learn their lessons the hard way, without much interference from anybody.
And while we're on that subject, where the hell are all the adults? Who's supervising these kids? This has to be the most irresponsible camp in creation!
Of course this also produces some of the most amusing scenes in the film. The kind where you really have to pinch yourself to believe what you see. Take for example the sequence where everyone in the camp are singing "what a friend I have in Jesus", while our girls sneak off in a stolen school bus to the sound of "One Way Or Another (I'm gonna get ya)" to buy condoms for their little project. Or how about those one-on-one swimming lessons where the coach vigourously tries to fend off advances from Ferris, while the other girls are posted in the area around the pool to warn off anyone who might be tempted to take a dip.
Let's forget the implausibility of a single male teacher, left to conduct swimming lessons with a teen girl in skimpy swimsuit and just mellow out to the sheer anti-wholesomeness of the scene. Sex with a dessert? That's for amateurs. Our girls go straight for the meat, so to speak.
Many films and TV-series have tackled this subject of sex and the expectations that come with it, and many have done it better than "Little Darlings", but the film still has something special, even though it's essentially a guilty pleasure. It's got more brains than it lets on at first sight and its agenda is a lot more serious than the "two girls compete to lose their virginity at summer camp"-plot would have you believe.
"Little Darlings" is both cheesy and serious. It's innocent and yet delightfully naughty. It's fun, but also melancholic. In that sense it perfectly captures the teenage mind, which, if nothing else, is a thing in a perpetual state of flux, doomed to pondering that eternal question to which there seems to be no answer: If it feels so good, why is it so bad?
