Lunch Hour

CinemaSerf6/10

Nov 14, 2022

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Shirley Anne Field is a young girl who gradually falls for her factory boss Robert Stephens - neither character are actually given names here! Their meetings are initially restricted to park chats or a visit to the tea room, which become gradually more frustrating as both wish to take their relationship to the next level. To that end he decides to procure an hotel room - and spins some fanciful yarns to the landlady along the way. What makes this otherwise rather procedural melodrama interesting is that the latter stages of the story increasingly see the young woman enter the realms of her imagination. What develops now for her is a family scenario with domestic bliss turning to domestic discord that though potent in it's intention is a little implausible. Not because she clearly has some form of schizophrenia, but because the man appears oblivious or uncaring to it - and that doesn't really sit with the basic premiss of the film, nor of their affection for each other. Their afternoon trysts would have surely demonstrated to him that she was ill and yet her fantasies proceed largely unfettered. There is, however, a strong dynamic between these two actors and peppered with only a few brief appearances from Kay Walsh running her den of iniquity, it is a strongly written and well presented two-hander that does offer food for thought.