THE BEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WORLD

US, 1981, 96 minutes, Colour.
Charles Durning, Eva Marie Saint, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ally Sheedy, Lisa Pelikan.
Directed by Sam O'Steen.

The Best Little Girl in the World is one of the many social minded telemovies of the late '70s and early '80s from the United States. It takes a contemporary problem, dramatises it, even lectures the audience with information and statistics. In presenting such dramas for home viewing, these film alert audiences to problems within their own household and encourages them to do something about it. This is one of the better made films, although it frequently moves towards preaching.

There is a very good cast led by Charles Durning and Eva Marie Saint as the parents, with Viveca Lindfors as a dance teacher, Jason Miller as the psychiatrist and Melanie Mayron (so good in Girlfriends, Playing for Time, Missing) as a disaster-prone patient. Jennifer Jason Leigh, daughter of Vic Morrow, plays the central role effectively. Direction is by former editor Sam O'Steen, who has made a number of telemovies including Brand New Life, Look What Happened to Rosemary's Baby.

1. The appeal of this kind of telemovie? As entertainment, as dramatisation of social problem? Interest? Moralising? The effect for the home audience?

2. The quality of the cast and performance? Audience identification? American setting, credibility? Production values? The musical score? Joni Mitchell's song, lyrics?

3. The portrait of an average family: the parents, the two daughters? The problem daughter and the daughter with no problems? The two girls and their coping? The assumptions about growing up, the future? Problems arising and the reaction of the girls, their parents?

4. The focus on the problem: anorexia nervosa? The explanation of its nature, the victims, statistics, results ? even to death? A concern in the United States? The nature of the illness in itself: psychosomatic? The physical effects? Psychological effects? Withdrawing, suicidal tendencies? The background to the illness: personal pressures, family pressures? The importance of succeeding, the goals given by advertising, especially for being thin? Diets and pills, fads? Glamour and expectations e.g. for dancing? Casey's being a typical victim? The family situation and her being disposed to the illness? Her never being listened to? Her wanting to have control over something?

5. The portrait of Casey, at home, being ignored, classes and her friends and her mother's suspicion, going to the dance instead of study, her shyness and sexual inhibition, her mother demanding her being home at 10.30 etc.? Her wanting to be a cheerleader and the boys' reaction? Gail's pregnancy and the family response? Her wanting to be a success as a dancer and her understanding of family expectations? Diets, dabbling with her food? The growing number of fights in the family?

6. Her visit to the doctor? Visit to the psychiatrist, her lies and his challenging her? Hospitalisation and her going out in the rain? The operation? Growing depression? The family visits and her lack of response? Clashes? The friend in the hospital, discussions, sharing, subterfuges? The quality of their talking? The suffering of her death and Casey's reaction?

7. The portrait of the family: Dad and his success, businesslike manner, high expectations, demands and stern manner? His love for his daughters? His reaction to Gail's pregnancy? To Casey's illness? The mother and her concern? Her expression of concern? Gail and her jealousy of Casey? Coping with the pregnancy? Making demands on her mother e.g. to be picked up?

8. The discussions with the psychiatrist and Casey's progress? His sympathy, method? The meeting of the family with the doctor? Their immediately squabbling and Casey's being ignored?

9. Melanie Mayron's portrait of the friend, her problems, style, room in the hospital, compulsions? Her death?

10. The portrait of the dance teacher and her influence on Casey's illness?

11. The film's focus on eating, food, the crises and the resolution, the eating of the ice cream? The exhortation to normality?

12. The effectiveness of the film as story, as a dramatisation of a social problem, as a means of community instruction and exhortation?