Gregory’s Girl – A Charming Slice of Teenage Life

Last time, Film Group took us back to 1980s New York with Working Girl. And we enjoyed the trip down Memory Lane so much that we were delighted when Lorna’s choice - Bill Forsyth’s wonderful 1980 film, Gregory’s Girl – not only took us deeper into our memories but also brought us closer to home.

Lorna has a strong affection for the film, which was set in the new town of Cumbernauld in central Scotland, only about ten miles from where she grew up, and in a school remarkably like her own.

For those who haven’t seen the film (if that’s even possible!), it stars John Gordon Sinclair as Gregory, Dee Hepburn as Dorothy and Clare Grogan as Susan, alongside a memorable supporting cast.

At the time, they were young actors from Glasgow Youth Theatre, and Forsyth – the writer and director – was equally unknown. Which begs the question: how did this apparently unsophisticated picture with an inexperienced team, quite a slight plot, and a budget of only £200,000 go on to gross £25.8m worldwide, get a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, receive four BAFTA nominations (and win one for Best Original Screenplay), become a stalwart of “Best British Films” lists and even feature in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games?

And would its gentle and humorous portrayal of teenage life still work so many years later?

At the centre of the film is Gregory, played by John Gordon Sinclair. He is awkward, cheerful and gawky — “I’ve grown five inches this year” — all arms and legs, physically and socially awkward, but essentially kind.

He is particularly sweet with his little sister Madeline, and his home life is comfortably off, with a drum kit, gadgets and plenty of affection. We never see his mother, although she is clearly around, but we do see his father, memorably encountered in his driving-instructor car.

Gregory is innocent and gauche. He loves Dorothy – who has joined his football team – but is too shy to ask her out. He is full of adolescent angst, howling out of the window with the local dogs. He goes on a casual date wearing Steve’s borrowed white jacket and a tie, is shocked when both football teams want to hug Dorothy after she scores a goal, and is horrified when Carol changes in a phone box and suddenly appears in her “going out clothes”.

His friends are equally memorable.

Andy, short and even more awkward, is full of “well-known facts” and numbers. He desperately wants to get to know girls but has absolutely no idea how to go about it. His chat-up lines include the information that when you sneeze, snot comes out of your nose at 100 miles per hour. He simply cannot read the room — at one point he carries on reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream aloud in class while everyone is distracted by Billy the window cleaner appearing at the window.

Steve is the excellent cook and baker, with no interest in football. There was some discussion about whether he has a crush on Gregory, particularly during the scene with their hands on the wooden spoon. For 1980, it is an interesting portrayal.

Steve also runs a food stall in the “bogs”, secretly supplying the head teacher with cakes. When Gregory takes his baking for granted, Steve protests: “I make you lovely things and it’s just food to you.”

And then there is Charlie, the silent one, who says virtually nothing until the very end, when he reveals Andy’s spectacular misspelling of Caracas.

If the boys are clueless, the girls have it all sussed.

Dorothy and her friends are terrific and understated. Dorothy, played by Dee Hepburn, is properly enigmatic. How did she take up football? We learn nothing about it. She tells Gregory, “I’m a quarter Irish and a quarter Italian”, but otherwise we know very little about her.

She shows Gregory her scars without seeming particularly seductive — although we wondered whether that was how we were meant to interpret it. There are also quick shots of Dorothy and Susan slyly planning things in the background.

The girls are much more confident than the boys. They make the decisions – as with Dorothy insisting to the football coach, “I want a trial, I want to sign something.” They are modern in a way that is repeatedly pointed out by the other characters.

And Dorothy playing football was certainly prescient. Girls playing football was not part of Lorna’s school experience, but here it is presented as perfectly natural. Dee Hepburn trained for six weeks with local club Partick Thistle for the role — around twenty years before Bend It Like Beckham brought girls’ football to a much wider audience.

Madeline, Gregory’s little sister, is another wonderfully confident girl. In the shopping scene she makes the decisions about clothes, and in the café she knows exactly what she wants, instructing the waitress explicitly, “don’t stir it”. Gregory cannot even decide what colour his coffee should be. She has a boyfriend too — “Richard’s the name” — despite being only ten or eleven.

There was something striking in the film about children speaking like adults and adults sometimes speaking like children.

One of the pleasures of Gregory’s Girl was recognising things from school days.

It is a state secondary school, mixed, probably comprehensive, with uniforms, teachers in gowns and, on the whole, pleasant and respectful relationships between teachers and pupils. There are no bullies and very little swearing.

There is hand-holding in the playground but no snogging (unlike in the film) — although perhaps that was happening behind the bike sheds.

There are the intellectual pupils running the school magazine, determined to get to “the real D”. There is activity in the “bogs”. In Lorna’s experience, the main activity there would have been smoking — a lot of it — which is notably absent from the film.

The teachers are an interesting bunch. Mr Menzies, the PE teacher with the moustache, is clearly at the bottom of the staffroom hierarchy and is teased by the other teachers. Several of us thought he was an extraordinarily wimpy sports teacher — quite unlike the bullies many of us remembered.

Much of the humour is physical, and Gregory is funny in almost every move: the breakfast scene with all the gadgets, the encounter with the car, spraying deodorant over his clothes, trying to get fit, and his attempts to be a goalkeeper.

There is also plenty going on in the background. The boy who cannot do the high jump, the photographer with his mini-me apprentice, the boy smoking a pipe in the bogs and the small children everywhere outside Gregory’s house all add to the film’s slightly offbeat atmosphere.

And then there is the penguin.

The penguin is never explained. Teachers simply keep sending it to different locations. What is its function? Perhaps it doesn't need one. It is completely incongruous, and that seems to be the point.

Lorna noted that there is something similar in Forsyth’s Local Hero, with another unexplained running joke. It is almost Python-esque: things appear, make us wonder what they are doing there, and then disappear without explanation.

The verbal humour is very “Glasgow”, too. “Call me Dad, it makes me feel more grown up” was one of the lines that stayed with us, as was the scene where girls discuss boys’ virginity while handling sulphuric acid.

The film is charming, but there are things that grate now.

The opening scene, with the boys peeping at the nurse as she takes her clothes off, was particularly uncomfortable — especially because she keeps her hat on, which somehow makes it feel even more like a stripogram.

The film’s staffroom behaviour is similarly inappropriate, with conversation between two male teachers about some of the girls. The strange scene involving the English teacher and Billy the window cleaner, a former pupil, feels particularly awkward to modern eyes.

We also discussed whether the teenagers seem very naïve compared with teenagers today. There is no internet or social media, and their world feels wonderfully disconnected from ours.

But perhaps that is also why the film is such a joy.

The film looks beautiful in its own understated way, capturing the feel of Cumbernauld and the long summer evenings when the light stays until ten or eleven. There are bridges, underpasses, lots of concrete, shopping precincts, grass-cutting and places where teenagers simply sit around.

The soundtrack by Colin Tully was another highlight. The solo saxophone gives the film a very particular atmosphere and was much admired by the group.

At the time, the film was praised for its portrayal of adolescence, its ensemble cast and John Gordon Sinclair’s physical comedy. Dorothy’s enigmatic character and Madeline’s lovable confidence also stood out.

For us, though, perhaps the most striking thing was its innocence.

It was described during the discussion as “charming in its innocence” and “a very gentle film”. It is not a deep film. But it is warm, funny and very feel-good. It was even described as possibly “the most British film we’ve watched”.

And the ending is particularly satisfying. We expect Gregory to get together with Dorothy, but the better match turns out to be Susan. The girls have quietly planned the whole thing, and Susan walks Gregory home — not the other way round.

Meanwhile Andy and his friend set off hitchhiking to Caracas, armed with their “facts” but not necessarily much wisdom. Their adventure comes to an appropriate end when we discover Andy has misspelled the destination.

Perhaps that is what makes Gregory’s Girl continue to work. It is full of odd little details, disconnected curiosities and characters who seem to belong entirely to their own world. It captures adolescence without making it overly dramatic.

And, more than forty years on, it still left us smiling.