Elsie's generally crummy mother, who once took out her own, abandoned-wife miseries on Elsie, has a new, serious boyfriend, Sam in Elsie's jaundiced eyes, she's trying to impress him with the image of a ""happy little family."" Sister Robyn is undergoing her own, young-teen trials: ""You aren't the only one who's had bad things happen."" Their philandering father, remarried with a two-year-old child, starts to stray again-and Elsie sees his wife also take it out on the child. Elsie's personal dilemmas are two-fold, and not much to get worked up about: should she succumb to handsome college-footballer Craddoc's new pressure for sex (now that she's 17)-or is absent ""friend"" Jack, of the soul-searching letters (and Indian-shaman buddy), the one she really wants to make love with? (Guess.) And what about highschool footballer Rick's obvious intention to break into the school computer, on which Elsie works, and change his grades? (She doesn't tell but she doesn't try to forestall the attempt either-and Rick gets caught.) By contrast, the shifting family relations do hit home. Episode three in the psychodrama of Elsie Edwards: the once-compulsive eater (Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade) who had not only to shed pounds but to gain self-esteem (How Do You Lose Those Ninth Grade Blues?)-as is heavily recapitulated in the course of her further self-therapy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |