Sooner or Later

I taped this movie from TV in my teens and watched it whenever I was feeling a bit down. It is a wonderfully feel-good movie and I can totally relate to 13 year old Jessie. Unfortunately it was accidentally taped over when I was in my early 20's and I have only just managed to acquire another copy, over 10 years later. I sat down and watched it today and discovered that all the magic is still there for me. I love the clothes Jessie wears because they are similar to the clothes I wore at her age. I love the way she is not totally skinny, but about the same weight I was at that age. I thoroughly enjoyed the music which is really great and typical of the era. I even felt comfortably at home in the mall! In fact, I melted into the couch and just let the whole atmosphere of the film wash over me and was glued to the screen from beginning to end. For anyone who likes feel-good romances, I thoroughly recommend this film. Although I have emphasized my reasons for liking it so much as being related to my own teenage experiences, the issues Jessie faces in the film are still pertinent to teenagers today.

I'm so excited to see this movie on IMDb! I loved this movie when it came out. I was the same age as the girl, and this movie fed my girlish fantasies. **swoon** It was a great movie! I haven't seen it in years. I wish they would put it on TV again. Maybe if I saw it now with grown up eyes, I would see it differently, but I doubt it. That movie is a piece of my youth and one of my special memories. I loved that song - You Take My Breath Away. Every once in a while, I find myself singing it - even now. Isn't that the funniest! I remember riding my bike to the record store to buy an eight track tape of Rex Smith's album as soon as it came out. (I wonder if I could get that again...) I had his posters from all the teen magazines all over my walls. I'm glad to know that he is doing well. He was so cute! I also watched him on Solid Gold and Pirates of Penzance. What I wouldn't have given to be able to switch places with Linda Ronstadt!

I still love this movie! I remember falling in love with Rex (I was 13!) and thinking that he was it for me!! I had the biggest crush on him for years! I guess deep down in, I still do! He's still sexy. I bought the movie just a couple of years ago, and now from time to time, watch it and fall in love again!! He has been in a few different shows, even a soap opera, but nothing he has done will match what he did for me in Sooner or Later! I can't imagine the 13-year old girls of today not watching this movie, and not feeling like I did when I saw it for the first time. I know that when you watch it several things are definitely 70's, but still..he's Rex and he's eternally hot!

Saw this movie on re-run just once, when I was about 13, in 1980. It completely matched my teenaged fantasies of sweet, gentle, interesting — and let's face it — hot — "older" guys. Just ordered it from CD Universe about a month ago, and have given it about four whirls in the two weeks since. As somebody mentioned — I'm haunted by it. As somebody else mentioned — I think it's part of a midlife crisis as well! Being 39 and realizing how much has changed since those simpler '70s times when girls of 13 actually did take buses and go to malls together and had a lot more freedom away from the confines of modern suburbia makes me sad for my daughter — who is nearly 13 herself. Thirteen back then was in many ways a lot more grown up.

The film is definitely '70s but not in a super-dated cheesy way, in fact the outfits Denise Miller as Jessie wears could be current now! You know what they say, everything that goes around... although the short-short jogging shorts worn by Rex with the to-the-knees sweat socks probably won't make a comeback.

The subject matter is handled in a very sensitive way and the characters are treated with a lot of respect. It's not the most chatty movie going — I often wished for more to be said between Jessie and Michael that would cement why he was also attracted to her. But the acting is solid, the movie is sweet and atmospheric, and the fringe characters give great performances. Mary Beth Manning as Jessie's friend Caroline is a total hoot — I think we all had friends like her. Maia Danziger as the relentless flirt with Michael gives a wiggy, stoned-out performance that just makes you laugh — because we also all knew girls that acted like that.

Denise Miller knocked her performance out of the ballpark with a very down-to-earth quality likely credited to her uknown status and being new to the industry. And I think not a little of the credit for the film's theatre-grade quality comes from the very capable, brilliant hands of the story's authors, Carole and the late Bruce Hart, who also wrote for Sesame Street. They really cared about the message of the movie, which was not an overt in-your-face thing, while at the same time understanding how eager many girls are to grow up at that age.

One thing that made me love the film then as much as now is not taking the cliché, easy, tied-with-a-bow but sort of let-down ending. In fact it's probably the end that has caused so many women to return to viewing the movie in their later years.

Re-watching Sooner or Later has me absolutely sick with nostalgia for those simpler times, and has triggered a ridiculous and sudden obsession with catching up with Rex Smith — whom while I enjoyed his albums Sooner or Later and Forever when I was young, I never plastered his posters on my walls as I did some of my other faves. In the past week, I've put his music on my iPod, read fan sites, found interviews (and marveled in just how brilliant he really is — the man has a fascinating way of thinking), watched clips on YouTube — what am I, 13? I guess that's the biggest appeal of this movie. Remembering what it was like to be 13 and the whole world was ahead of you.

When I saw the movie in 1979, before they gave television shows or movies parental ratings, I am thinking now that this movie is actually pretty risk taking for its time. Nonetheless, it is about a 13 year old who pretends she is 16 to gain the attentions of a 17 year old high school student who aspires to be a singer Rex Smith, who was a minor teen heart throb at the time is fine. Denise Miller who played essentially minor parts both in Fish and Archies'place later in her career is excellent as a conflicted 13 year old who does not know whether she should play with dolls or boys. Judd Hirsh(Taxi) and Barbara Feldon make use of the screen time by providing Miller with advice and tactfully helping the adolescent to make the difficult transition from her youth into a young teenager.