The Wayward Girl

A fascinating glimpse of what might have been had Liv Ullmann met Ingmar Bergman earlier, since she played the little minx described as "rude and up for anything" as which he'd earlier cast Harriet Andersson and would later cast Gunnel Lindblom.

In a storyline that in places anticipates 'Knife in the Water' it also looks forward to Michael Powell's 'Age of Consent' in showcasing a distinguished actress in her youth as a free spirit cavorting in long blonde hair and nothing else against a backdrop of scenic splendour.

The Wayward Girl ("Ung flukt" in original Norwegian) gets most recognition for being Liv Ullmanns first feature film. (She had her debut in an uncredited role in "Fools in the mountains" by the same director, Edith Carlmar. She probably saw somthing in this young girl, and maybe the same Ingmar Bergman did later as his muse and later wife.

Edith Carlmar was Norways first big female director and this is her tenth and last directoral work of feature films which considered great Norwegian classics. So is this, which is based upon the novel "The sought after is 18 years old" ("Ettersøkte er 28 år") by Nils Johan Rud, released the year before this movie was released. Edith Carlmars husband and film producer Otto Carlmar made the script.

Anders is trying to save his fellow teenager girlfriend Gerd from her wayward life with a nagging mother and the child protection service. Anders is a proper boy with high marks in school. He is under her spell, being in love. His parents are of course all against it. So the flee away, and finds a left cabin in the woods where they hide. But they are discovered by a mysterious man, who will test their bonds (played by renown actor Rolf Søder).

Atle Merton plays wel, so does of course Rolf Søder, and the movie was a start for a great acting career for Ullmann, who later was nominated for two Oscars, and received a honorary Oscar in 2022.

It's an interesting and well played story filmed in 1.37:1 and black and white. The story keeps interest and this movie is a great end to and good directorial career for Edith Carlmar, which received a honorary Amanda award in 1994 for her achievements in film.

This movie is made available in 2023 when it was released on interregional (region-free) Blu-Ray Disk by Norwegian Film Classics as the fifth release in a new series with classics, NFK0011, with subtitles in English, and is supposed to be held in stock for film lovers.

I should be darned! How does this moving have an average of 6.5? I thought it was magnificent. Oh well. Take care out there.

"Ung Flukt" aka "The Wayward Girl" (1959) is the fifth Edith Carlmar movie I have watched recently, and one thing I can say without a doubt is that she was better at dramas than she was at comedies. It is an uneven film that gets a shot in the arm when Rolf Søder enters the picture in the second half and the film changes gears from a New Wave-y ode to the utopia of escape from everyday life to a thriller-ish love triangle; the story definitely becomes more compelling. A ravishing, voluptuous 20-year-old Liv Ullmann has her first major screen role here and takes the screen by storm. *** out of 4.

The whole movie is just Liv Ullmann being hot for 90 minutes.

Not really.

But kind of.

The Wayward Girl is a good deal more peaceful than other "young couples running away from society" movies, because the couple here don't rob banks like Bonnie and Clyde or kill people like one half of the couple in Badlands.

It involves a boy who's dating a girl his parents don't like, and I guess that makes him want to run away from their influence for a while, and she's happy to tag along. They hang out and some complications ensue. Eventually, there are also people looking for them, but even that stuff isn't quite as dramatic as you might expect.

It's not particularly exciting or interesting for the most part, but The Wayward Girl is overall serviceable stuff. I think Ullmann and everyone else are generally pretty good, and I like how it doesn't overstay its welcome I guess. A runtime of an hour and a half felt right.

Scenery's nice. It's enough. It's all just enough. There's enough here for it to be decent. Writing a review for a C+ movie is difficult, I'm sorry.