If you don't know ahead that this is just a debut full-lenght feature film of a young director (later the main "teenage" director of the USSR), you can easily think that this is the work of a mature artist, with well-formed artistic vision and distinctive creative methods. These methods, first of all, consist in an uncommon approach to interaction with children, non-professional actors.
Asanova tried to reveal the personality traits of the teenagers themselves and then to let them naturally manifest in their characters. Sometimes this led to genuine findings, as in this movie. Young (14 year old) actress Elena Tsyplakova is amazingly cinematic and attractive with that special sexiness which is yet not recognized by its possessor. She is very organic and it seems she just lives a piece of her life on camera - in her playing there is neither theatrical melodrama, nor calibrated academism. Thanks to this, first love looks the way it happens actually most often: a bit ridiculous, slightly awkward, hidden behind ordinary chatter, and non-reciprocal.
The girl is quite intelligent and reasonable for her age, she has already sketched the general plan of her life, and she definitely does not see in it any place for the boy in the future. And he will likely have to hopelessly pursue his unfulfilled dreams the rest of his life, like he tried to catch the train up in the end of the picture.
