Gregory's Girl

Bill Forsyth's film is set in Cumbernauld, a new town in Scotland. Gregory, played by John Gordon Sinclair, is the school team's poor goalkeeper; when Dorothy, played by Dee Hepburn, joins the side he loses his place and falls for her at the same moment. Its best quality is treating adolescent love as a comedy of incompetence rather than a drama. Gregory does not know what to do, his friends know even less, and the girls have worked all of it out already. The handover in the final section inverts the romantic comedy template without humiliating anyone. Forsyth won the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay in 1982 for it, and Sinclair was nominated for Best Newcomer. One distribution detail is part of the film's lore: for the American release the Scottish accents were considered unintelligible and the film was re-dubbed with more anglicised speech. Both versions appear on the American DVD. Who it is for: viewers who like Scottish humour and gentle films about teenagers. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace or event, since the film stays inside the everyday.