13 year old Jodie Foster must defend her home from the world of adults in 1976's The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. It's a decent suspense movie with a surprisingly touching romantic subplot.
The first person to question why Rynn (Foster) seems to be living alone in a big house is an unmistakable child molester played very broadly by Martin Sheen.
After she finally gets him to leave, she has to deal with his mother, the woman who leased the house to her father. Rynn always tells people her father's working in the study and can't be disturbed or is away on a business trip to New York. When finally things lead to someone getting killed and Rynn having to dispose of evidence, she suddenly finds she has an ally in a geeky young magician named Mario (Scott Jacoby).
These two were really sweet together and I liked the blend of altruism and awkward lust that makes Mario immediately want to join forces with her against the adults, even before he understands what's really going on. It was good.
I'd been wanting to watch this movie since it was referred to on Twin Peaks in 2017. The mystery of Jodie Foster alone in the house is kind of tonally reminiscent of the mystery of Audrey Horne in the house with the writer. Rynn's father is also a writer, a poet.
A friend lent me his DVD but my lousy blu-ray drive doesn't like to play most DVDs. I tried watching it on Amazon Prime which has two versions--a totally free version and a "freevee" version with ads. The first one just didn't work at all, the spinning loading graphic just disappeared and left me looking at a blown up thumbnail. The freevee version had so many ads it made the movie unwatchable. Always the same ads, too. Every four minutes or so it seemed like I had to stop and watch the ad for the Ted series again or something for cancer medication. It broke up the tone too much and wasted a lot of time.
I did some googling and found the movie is totally free on both Tubi and Roku. I didn't even need a login for Tubi and there were no ads. I'm seriously starting to question my need to keep Amazon Prime.
No comments:
Post a Comment