Writer-director Anthony Simmons shows two couples in crisis, tying them in with a gimmick, which works. There’s an unidentified girl found in a river. Simmons gives the scene of the discovery and study of the drowned girl a metallic, sombre documentary flavor.
A seemingly rootless young man picks up a singer he knows after her work. At four in the morning they romp around the Thames’ shores, steal a boat, leave it, almost touch each other emotionally but part still uncommitted. Hints of the instability of both are carefully and intelligently suggested.
The other couple is shown as a woman waiting for her husband, out on the town with a bachelor crony. The baby cries and exasperates her. The growing incompatibility of the couple is deftly outlined in bold, dramatic strokes.
Judi Dench has the right checked hysteria for her role of the wife with a disposition towards love that makes her poignant. Ann Lynn and Brian Phelan are also effective as the other couple with Joe Melia a pointed counterpoint to the married couple with his personal problems.
