Director
Joseph Sargent
Leading Actors/Actresses
Sally Field, Lane Bradbury
Supporting Actors/Actresses
David Carradine
Genre
Made for Television Movie, Dramatic Movie
Language
English
Awards
None
Date of Release
February 16, 1971
Producer
Joseph Sargent
Setting and Context
Southern California, 1970
Narrator and Point of View
There is not always a narrator; however, at times in the movie Sally Field narrates in a "baby voice" to denote that she is Denise as a child narrating her opinion of what her childhood was like and why things turned out the way that they did.
Tone and Mood
The tone is both optimistic and stressful, in that everyone is pleased to see Dennie home but stressed in the fear that she might feel the need to run away again. The mood is combative and argumentative.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is Dennie. The antagonists are her parents, before she runs away, and her sister once she returns home.
Major Conflict
There is constant conflict between Susie and her parents.
Climax
Susie leaves home with her boyfriend to join a hippie colony in exactly the same way that Dennie did before her.
Foreshadowing
Claire and Ed turn Susie's room upside down looking for evidence of drug use; Dennie follows suit and turns the house inside out looking for Susie's pills, which she finds. This foreshadows Susie's need to get out on her own where she can do drugs as freely as she wants to and ultimately foreshadows her running away.
Understatement
Dennie says that the hippie life is not all it's cracked up to be. In her flashbacks we see this to be an understatement as she is filthy, hungry, reduced to begging, high on drugs and used for sex by multiple men under the guise of "free love".
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
No specific examples.
Allusions
The movie alludes to the counter culture of the time and the way in which the older generation viewed the hippie community with suspicion and outright dislike.
Paradox
Claire and Ed believe that coming down harder on Susie will make sure that she does not follow Dennie's footsteps and run away, but this makes her more angry and more desperate to leave.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between the way that Dennie ran to join a group of hippies and the way that her little sister is doing the same.
