This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

From my favorite movies..

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Girl with Green Eyes seems typical of the period of British "Kitchen-Sink" drama films (I saw it as the 2nd part of a double bill with The Leather Boys and the theme being Rita Tushingham performances, though this is dialed down a little from that turn), and that's what's good but not terribly memorable about it all. It's realistic in some of the basic character interactions, though it has a bouncier/more emotionally-cued up score than the material should have, if that makes sense. It seems like a minor point but Desmond Davis clearly wanted to get a lot of emotional/romantic/tragic pull out of the music by John Addison, and it may have been too much for this lot of realism (how typical this is by the way, it's produced by Tony Richardson).The story is actually an Irish-Kitchen-Sink movie, though with a couple of British touches: a young girl in Dublin, who originally was from a fairly lower-class farm that was highly religious but working *very* Irish class all the same, is working at a bookstore and finds that there's an author that she would like to meet along with her friend/roommate Baba. Peter Finch is this man, and soon Kate, the girl of the title, takes a real liking to him, and after not too long he to her. So they "hook up", so to speak, and this brings on problems, both external in force (he's technically married with a kid in another country, she's got pressure from her family not to have anything to do with this "Godless heathen), and more about the fact that it's a man who could be old enough, if only barely, to be her father.This is a story explored in many kind of films, whether it's throw-a-dart-and-hit a Philip Roth story, or of course Manhattan. There's enough chemistry and charm between the two leading people as Tishingham, even dialed down, is delightful, and Finch does a lot playing usually-crusty and mostly sardonic/sarcastic speaking (if there had been a remake some years back I could've seen Alan Rickman in his role), plus Lynn Redgrave being wonderful and funny in her supporting place. But there's not much here that elevates it past its time and place; it's a perfectly fine drama, and it doesn't distinguish itself past some insights, which are only insightful up to a point, that you may need to grow as a person (or can never meet the other on the flipside due to losing "youthful vigor" as an aging man) to have a relationship work sometimes.There's a nice, tender feeling to the film, Finch and Tushingham make a good pair on screen (precisely because we kind of know, deep down, it's not only not going to work but it can't not ever work, if that makes sense, so let's see them in the little moments) and that should work for anyone looking for that. Although some things that contribute to the 'hasnt-aged-terribly-well' is, say, when the film is edited so early on in their courtship Eugene and Kate talk and one part of a sentence begins in a new location and then another and another, and it feels distracting.

Never cared very much for Rita Tushingham. I remember her being tagged for the role of the daughter of Lara & Yuri in Dr. Zhivago. Seriously? That face was not created by the DNA of the likes of Julie Christie and Omar Sharif. I find her acting mannerisms irritating and her face reminiscent of a ferret. I realize that not every movie actor needs to be a great beauty, but swear to god I don't see how she ever got a career in movies. It's just hard to see her for 2 hours in a film. Thankfully I didn't watch it on a huge screen.The movie seems dated. Lynn Redgrave was pretty good and Peter Finch played his usual cold & distant personality which reminded me of his Jake Armitage character in The Pumpkin Eater.

Lovely, lyrical, bittersweet romance with young Rita Tushingham as a simple, convent-reared shop girl in Ireland who forms a relationship with a much older man, an intellectual, worldly agnostic (and married, but separated), living in isolation on a farm, writing books, in a finely wrought performance by Peter Finch. Tushingham and her chatterbox roommate, nicely played by Lynn Redgrave, casually meet on Finch's farm. Tushingham finds him attractive, with age difference no object, and invites him to tea in the city. Finch, somewhat world weary and wary of getting himself into an affair with a young, innocent girl, succumbs to her persistence and after a few meetings they consummate their relationship tenderly in scenes of gentle mutual affection. But, eventually, with family and priest strongly admonishing her for her "adultery" and ultimately Finch's withdrawal, Tushingham moves to England and finds relationships with men her own age and philosophically accepts the end of one, memorable phase of her life and the beginning of another. But this is not a plot-driven film – it's all character. As a sagacious film critic said a long time ago of another actress in another film (Audrey Hepburn in "A Nun's Story"), the theater is all in her face and it's Tushingham's wonderfully wistful performance, all manifested in those big, expressive eyes, that is the central and salient feature of this fine film, and which gives it its special quality.Marc Feldman 3-8-2005

Poor Rita Tushingham--she did seem to inherit some strangely frustrating parts.In "A Taste of Honey" she was a young pregnant girl, first abandoned by her itinerant sailor, then landing in a "relationship" with a sadly confused chap. In "Girl with Green Hair," she's another adolescent who falls for a man twice her age. Won't she ever learn?Director Desmond Davis' work resembles Tony Richardson's so much that their styles are almost interchangeable. It may be because Composer John Addison also scored Richardson's "A Taste of Honey," and "Loneliness of the Long Distant Runner." It's remarkable how Addison's bleakly dissonant style so greatly influences the moods of these dramas.With Davis employing a lot of contrapuntal passages played by a thin woodwind ensemble--often featuring a solo oboe--one does feel the emptiness and loneliness of character emotions. There was no one who embodied the "Cockney Kitchen Sink" dramas of the 60s like Tushingham. She was perfect for her parts. Here ably supported by Peter Finch as a blase older man and Lynn Redgrave as a daftly talkative friend, Tushingham plays her role to the hilt.By the end, the viewer has come to experience a limited encounter--rather doomed from the start--between a worldly wise Dublin land owner and working class Brit girl . . . the latter of whom is finally able to move on with her education and find acquaintances more her age.The viewer during this visit has experienced some telling scenes of Irish-English life, and an interesting adolescent/mature fling at a brief encounter.