Gregory's Two Girls (1999)

Director:

Bill Forsyth

Writer:

Bill Forsyth (writer)

Release Date:

15 October 1999 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Bill Forsyth returns to the romantic comedy of Gregory's Girl. Twenty years after his teenage crush on a football-mad schoolgirl...

Plot Keywords:

Torture | School | United Nations | Conspiracy | Police

Cast

Carly McKinnon	...	Frances
John Gordon Sinclair	...	Gregory Underwood
John Murtagh	...	Headmaster
Hugh McCue	...	Douglas
Dougray Scott	...	Fraser Rowan
Martin Schwab	...	Dimitri
Maria Doyle Kennedy	...	Bel
Alexander Morton	...	Norman (teacher)
William Harkness	...	Courier
Albert Coulson	...	Bus driver
Paul Birchard	...	American executive
Simon Huh	...	Asian executive
Dawn Steele	...	Jan
Kevin Anderson	...	Jon
Fiona Bell	...	Maddy Underwood

Runtime:

116 min

Country:

UK | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:15

Filming Locations:

Abronhill High School, Abronhill, Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK

Company:

Channel Four Films

Quotes:

[in a meeting with the headmaster and the police, Greg is waffling about watching badgers to explain why he was seen with Frances in the park late at night]
Detective Gorrie: So what were you doing last night?
Gregory Underwood: Well last night was pretty exciting, actually, because Frances had more or less promised us... You see, the thing is, I've never actually seen Frances's beaver.
[embarrassed silence]
Gregory Underwood: "Frances's beaver"! I mean Frances's badger.

Movie Connections:

References That Sinking Feeling (1980)

Soundtrack:

Flower of Scotland

Not likely to significantly revive Forsyth's reputation

Forsyth returns to the site of the small-scale comedy that made his now-battered name with this somewhat ambitious but messy and incompletely developed chronicle of a teacher who talks about responsibility and activism but practices only stagnation, until the discovery that a local computer company is manufacturing torture devices for Third World dictatorships - and the galvanizing influence of a pupil about whom he has erotic fantasies - bring him to belated life. It's easy enough to see what Forsyth had in mind, but the movie isn't at all well integrated - the Big Ideas float like patches of oil on a stagnant loch. The two girls of the title are both merely wet dreams of different kinds (the movie attempts to forge a parallel between his political/social and his personal maturity - the latter of which is achieved by having actress Kennedy hang around in desperation until he's ready for her "ripe" charms); the movie gets its biggest laugh from the well-timed use of the word "beaver"; the happy ending is a total cheat; even the setting isn't particularly well evoked...on the whole it's not likely to significantly revive Forsyth's reputation.