{"id":5519,"date":"2008-05-03T17:50:39","date_gmt":"2008-05-04T00:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=5519"},"modified":"2021-01-17T20:52:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T03:52:09","slug":"secret-places-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=5519","title":{"rendered":"Secret Places (1984)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;This is Laura&#8230; She&#8217;s come from abroad.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Secret-Places-Poster-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Secret-Places-Poster-1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-64020\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Secret-Places-Poster-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Secret-Places-Poster-1-85x128.jpg 85w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Secret-Places-Poster-1-180x270.jpg 180w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Secret-Places-Poster-1.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nDuring World War Two, a teen (Tara MacGowran) befriends the daughter (Marie-Theres Relin) of a German refugee (Klaus Barner) and French actress (Claudine Auger).\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Coming-of-Age<\/li>\n<li>Friendship<\/li>\n<li>Jenny Agutter Films<\/li>\n<li>World War Two<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nBased on a novel by Janice Elliott, this WWII-era coming-of-age film features fine, authentic performances by Tara MacGowran and Marie-Theres Relin (Maria Schell&#8217;s daughter) in the lead roles, but fails to sufficiently develop any of its intriguing narrative strands. Relin&#8217;s dilemma &#8212; how will she cope with being a German teenager in England during the thick of war? &#8212; is a compelling one, but is quickly (and inexplicably) dropped as she and MacGowran become friends. Indeed, the entire film essentially consists of teasers: while there are hints of a possible lesbian attraction between the two girls, this is never explored; Jenny Agutter makes a brief appearance as a sympathetic teacher, but her role is minimal at best, and makes no real difference to the storyline; Cassie Stuart (looking like Aileen Quinn in <em>Annie<\/em> with her bouncy blonde head of curls) is appropriately giddy as a boy-crazy classmate, but her eventual dilemma (you guessed it) is both cliched and simply yet another distraction. Ultimately, <em>Secret Places<\/em> is too narratively scattered to recommend for anyone other than diehard coming-of-age fans. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marie-Theres Relin as Laura<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/secret-places-relin.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/secret-places-relin.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5520\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Tara MacGowran as Patience<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/secret-places-macgowran.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/secret-places-macgowran.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5521\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Jenny Agutter in a bit role as one of the girls&#8217; teachers<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/secret-places-agutter.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/secret-places-agutter.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5522\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo, though it&#8217;s worth a look simply for the performances. Listed as a Sleeper in the back of Peary&#8217;s book. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0088075\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1985\/05\/10\/movies\/screen-secret-places.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/movies\/secret-places\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;This is Laura&#8230; She&#8217;s come from abroad.&#8221; Synopsis: During World War Two, a teen (Tara MacGowran) befriends the daughter (Marie-Theres Relin) of a German refugee (Klaus Barner) and French actress (Claudine Auger). Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Coming-of-Age Friendship Jenny Agutter Films World War Two Review: Based on a novel by Janice Elliott, this WWII-era coming-of-age film features fine, authentic performances by Tara MacGowran and Marie-Theres Relin (Maria Schell&#8217;s daughter) in the lead roles, but fails to sufficiently develop any&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=5519\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5519"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64021,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5519\/revisions\/64021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}