MESSAGE TO MY DAUGHTER

US, 1973, 75 minutes, Colour.
Martin Sheen, Bonnie Bedelia, Kitty Wynn.
Directed by Robert Michael Lewis.

A touching telemovie from the early seventies. It focuses on a teenager, played by Kitty Winn, who is confused but listens to tape recordings made by her long dead mother. The mother is portrayed by Bonnie Bedelia, the father by Martin Sheen.

The film folk echoes the atmosphere of the seventies, difficulties in family life, teenage confusions, the need for role models and for support from parents. The casting is strong, giving the telemovie an above average impact.

1.Quality telemovie? For home audiences? Theme, treatment? Family?

2.The reflection of the styles of the seventies - with the memories of the fifties? The transitions? Generations, parents and children?

3.The title and its focus, on the mother, concern for her daughter? Death? The plausibility? The treatment?

4.The structure of the film: the flashback, technique, the parallels of the generations?

5.The portrait of Miranda, her bitterness? The drive, hospital, her father, anger? The gift, her leaving, the travelling? Listening? The ups and downs? The old woman, the two who attacked her, passes, picking her up, lifts? The utility and her repeating the words? The ring or not? The cemetery? Her anger, transition to understanding, the gift of the tapes, her gratitude?

6.Janet - young, boys and sex, her parents, leaving? The question of the abortion? Johnny, marriage, anger, her parents, illness, fighting John, the reconciliation, happy with Miranda? The pathos of her death?

7.The message, its tone? Her reflections, love, her experience of life, the parallels? The past, relationships? Her father, the question of the abortion? Her death.

8.John, relationship with his wife, tough? The novelist? The reason for not giving the tapes? Memories of the past? Writing, cinema, options? Love and marriage? Writing, fighting? Not being the father? Love, concern? Marriage and love for his wife?

9.The parents, strictness? The phone call, the visit - sadness?

10.The gallery of people on the trip, styles, characters, glimpses?

11.The emotional impact of the film and its themes? Focuses on identity, family and roots?