Wish You Were Here (1987) on Netflix
Lynda Mansell, sixteen, shocks the English seaside town where she lives with her widowed father Hubert and her younger sister. She swears freely and shows off her legs on the promenade.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.8/103,768 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a coastal town in England in the early 1950s, Lynda Mansell, sixteen, lives with Hubert, her widowed father, and her younger sister, Margaret. She has sworn since childhood, and she rides her bicycle along the promenade with her skirt hiked up and asks young men to compare her legs with Betty Grable's, which turns her peers and her sister against her. Hubert runs a barber shop and finds her work at a hair salon, a fish and chip van and a bus depot, and each job ends when her behavior does; he also takes her to a psychiatrist. Brian, whom she meets on the promenade, and Dave, a bus conductor, both draw her interest, and Eric, a middle-aged back-street bookie, starts to pursue her.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Wish You Were Here (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For the scene in which Lynda flashes her underwear at bus drivers, director David Leland hid makeup department staff among the extras to surprise actress Emily Lloyd, catching her genuine laughter on camera.
- David Leland loosely based the film on Cynthia Payne's adolescence growing up on the Sussex coast. Leland had already written Personal Services, about Payne's adult life, and it was released before Wish You Were Here.
