Writer-director William Fruet, adapting his play about a 16-year-old Irish wallflower in a Canadian town during World War II who is raped in her own living room by the soldier pal of her visiting brother, has a very limited vocabulary and an even narrower imagination. The wartime period décor is drably evoked, while the characters are of a frustratingly limited intelligence. Fruet has his cast emote and emote until the actors are shiny-faced with sweat. Worst of the offenders is Paul Bradley as the Dougall family's son celebrating being home on leave (Bradley, acting drunk with his mouth hanging open, looks almost as old as Donald Pleasence playing his father). As the wallflower's would-be loose, self-centered girlfriend, screechy Bonnie Carol Case is nearly as bad (and no explanation has been provided as to how these polar-opposites ever became friends, or why Case is so eager to meet soldiers but barely notices the two army men in her own friend's dining room). In the lead, young Carol Kane has been directed by Fruet to stay doe-eyed and vulnerable--with a humiliated look on her face. Still three years away from her breakthrough role in "Hester Street", Kane exudes promise but can't do much to bring shading or subtlety to this overstated scenario. * from ****
