A Kind of Loving

Year: 1962

Genre: Drama

Directed: John Schlesinger

Stars: Alan Bates, June Ritchie, Thora Hird, Bert Palmer, Pat Keen, James Bolam, Jack Smethurst, Gwen Nelson, John Ronane, David Mahlowe, Patsy Rowlands, Michael Deacon

Production: Rialto Pictures

My true love and I have been together for quite a while. We started out as friends – a friendship based almost entirely on the fact that both of us spent one hour a day in the same classroom. We lost touch for a while but thanks to a mixture of happenstance and Facebook, we quickly reconnected. That was seven years ago.

And she still hasn't gotten over it.

I wouldn’t presume our relationship to be all that common but it does fall rather snuggly into a familiar notion. So familiar in fact that it’s almost taken for granted; you’re with the person you’re with because you love them. That assertion however, isn’t all that old. It’s only been about a century since romantic love took the driver’s seat from things like financial stability, social standing, family arrangement and the big ones, race and religion. And it can be argued that our more modern take on love and marriage is yet another evolution.

I look at pornography like an adult!

For Vic Brown (Bates), a twenty-something draughtsman from Manchester, marriage is about the farthest thing from his mind, whether for love or otherwise. He’s more concerned with the trappings of his age like hanging with raucous friends, drinking in boozy pubs, and dating with the vague promise of carnal pleasures. Vic yens for that last part more than most. He even carries around a nudie magazine with him as a symbol of his prurient desires.

Despite this, A Kind of Loving’s plot comes across as outwardly wholesome, at least to start. Based on a novel by Stan Bartow, Vic soon falls for Ingrid (Ritchie), a local beauty whose outward cheeriness and unsure demurrals hides a naivety that serves as a lynchpin for the story’s emotional core. She’s not right for him; nor him for her, but they go through the motions of going to late-night movies, necking behind alleyway fences and whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears.

They inevitably discover sex; a breakthrough in their relationship that only further inserts expectations and pressures from outside forces. What follows beyond that point is a wrought, melancholy downward spiral into the kind of loving that most young people are trying to avoid; the kind where the passive-aggressive behaviors of our two flawed protagonists, strains and limps as the story wears on.

At the time of its release, director John Schlesinger’s first foray into “Kitchen-sink” realism must have turned some heads. It’s unabashedly youth-centric, often feeling like a worse-case scenario in the way it approaches the clichés of hen-pecked masculinity, tensions between the generations and downward mobility. Moralizing about lust and rebellion are often tempered by frank discussion of birth control and a mature worldview that explores not just the psychology of sex but what it means in a large societal context. Not to mention the moments of abrupt sexuality would never find their way into some flaccid PSA about the dangers of whoopee.

Yet even with its unvarnished view of romance and a heavy dollop of humanity, A Kind of Loving can’t help but feel a bit episodic and a little more than melodramatic. Many of the film’s earth-shattering plot points felt broad and one-note, testing the patience of its audience and forcing them to beg the question, why can’t Ingrid and Vic just talk out their problems? The issue isn’t helped by Willis Hall’s and Keith Waterhouse’s screenplay which turns the rich characterizations of key characters, including Vic’s friend Christine (Keen) into walking clichés of, “I told you so.”

That said, A Kind of Loving is still a very compelling cultural artifact that questioned the moral compass of the time while foretelling in its own way, an upcoming sexual revolution. It’s also one heck of a first feature for John Schlesinger, who would utilize similar themes in movies like Billy Liar (1963), Darling (1965) and Midnight Cowboy (1969). Here however, I’d argue Schlesinger is at his most authentic.

Final Grade: B-