The Lovers!

A British comedy; A story set in Manchester, England about a hesitant, inexperienced, young couple attempting to negotiate the 'permissive' society. This film is a spin-off from a British sitcom that eschewed the two TV series to tell the story of unlikely lovebirds. It is set against the backdrop of greater sexual freedoms and independence of the early 1970s with women growing in confidence and aspiring to true parity with men in their sexual and professional lives, rejecting futures dominated by marriage, motherhood and domestic drudgery. The gauche comedy is entertaining thanks to actors Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox, and innocent fun for the naive and clumsy interplay and playful courting. Wilcox delightfully combines being prude with bourgeois snobbery, while Beckinsale is wonderfully vulnerable and helpless as he veers between laddism and romance nervously. The film isn't directed with much panache, and it is a slight story, but it has a quaint dialogue.