INTIMATE RELATIONS

In a small provincial town in England in 1954, Mr. and Mrs. Beasley live what appears to be a model married life. While Stanley's reputation is founded on his valiant service on the battlefields of Europe, Marjorie's prestige derives from her expert skills on the homefront. She is a paragon housewife, a doyenne of the duster, adn a champion of the domestic chore. However, behind the net curtains of their immaculate semi, the seeds of discontent have been sown. Marjorie decides to take a boarder and she chooses Harold, a young sailor who uses sweets to calm his violent tendencies. She makes it her business to seduce the vulnerable young man while maintaining the illusion of herself as the upholder of traditional family values. When the Beasleys' 14-year-old daughter, Joyce (a sweet girl with a penchant for morbid stories) discovers the affair, she doesn't want to be left out. Harold had hoped life in the Beasley home would help to heal the scars of his unhappy childhood, bu the soon finds himself trapped by tea and sympathy in an atmosphere of blackmail and deceit. – Montreal World Film Festival