Wish You Were Here (1987 film)


Wish You Were Here is a 1987 British comedy-drama film written and directed by David Leland and starring Emily Lloyd and Tom Bell. The original music score was composed by Stanley Myers. The story is loosely based on the formative years of Cynthia Payne.

Plot

Sixteen-year-old Lynda Mansell lives in a small English seaside town in the early 1950s. She is feisty, outspoken and precocious and tries to shock other people with her histrionic behaviour and vulgar tongue. Bored with conventional jobs and her town's dull young men, Lynda has her first sexual experience with Dave but after she has slept with one of her father's middle-aged friends, her life changes. She becomes pregnant and her father, a somewhat rigid and conventional man, disowns her. Desperately she tries to seek an illegal abortion but in the end decides to become a mother.

Cast

The film was based loosely on the memoirs of the British madam Cynthia Payne as an adolescent growing up on the Sussex coast. It was filmed in the Sussex towns of Brighton, Worthing and Bognor Regis.

Reception

Wish You Were Here has an overall approval rating of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 31 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film 3½ stars out of four, praising Lloyd's performance as "one of the great debut roles for a young actress".

Awards and honours