‘Girl With Green Eyes’: first love and the futility of fantasy

Posted On March 9, 2025March 9, 2025

Love often feels like the ultimate goal when you’re young. On the cusp of adulthood, the allure of having a partner – someone who loves every aspect of you and accepts your flaws – can be overwhelming. Any teenage insecurity is lessened by the validation of another who finds you beautiful, funny, charming, and intelligent, but in Girl With Green Eyes, Desmond Davis’ underrated romantic drama from 1964, protagonist Kate discovers the messy reality of first love.

A few years after her starring role in 1961’s A Taste of Honey, Rita Tushingham signed on for the leading part of Kate in Girl With Green Eyes opposite Peter Finch. Produced by Woodfall Film Productions, which provided us with many classic British films of the era, the movie also featured Lynn Redgrave – who went on to star in Georgy Girl two years later – as Kate’s best friend, Baba. It’s certainly not the most well-known Woodfall film, but it’s a quietly powerful drama that sees Tushingham deliver another stellar performance as a shy yet ambitious young girl whose first taste of love and adulthood is far from perfect.

So, while it might not be preoccupied with issues like poverty, single motherhood, abortion, or unemployment as many British movies of the era were – nor did it lean into the sexually-charged comedy that would soon emerge – Girl With Green Eyes presents audiences with a story that is real, heartfelt, and relatable to many young audiences. Before Fish Tank or Lady Bird or Call Me By Your Name, the film depicted that pivotal moment in a young person’s life when their first experience of sex and romance proves to be a vital lesson, helping them to come of age and step into the world with a newfound understanding that fantasy is often futile.

As depressing as that might sound, Girl With Green Eyes isn’t a sad film – it’s an honest one. Kate is a sweet and rather innocent young Irish girl who has recently left convent school and is now living in the city for the first time. The experience of moving away and becoming an adult, getting a real job, and finally feeling as though you’re capable of anything is one that defines many of our young adulthoods. For Kate, who Tushingham plays perfectly with her good nature and quiet demeanour that so clearly conceals a world of daydreaming, a partner isn’t what she initially sets out to find, but when she stumbles upon the middle-aged Eugene Gaillard twice – first in the countryside, then at a bookshop – her desire to be seen as this new woman, mature and sophisticated, leads her into uncharted territory.

Kate and Eugene begin to bond over shared interests. However, when their relationship inevitably turns sexual, Kate’s lack of experience and fear of intimacy (largely due to her religious upbringing) cause tension between the two, revealing the cracks in their initially idealistic relationship. With the discovery that Eugene is married and has a child, her father’s discovery that his daughter has committed adultery, and Eugene’s opposing religious beliefs, Kate’s dream of being the partner to an intelligent, well-read man comes crashing down.

In the haze of attraction and fulfilment, Kate ignores the fact that a married middle-aged man expressing interest in a young and naive girl fresh out of school can only spell trouble. She tries against the odds of her father, who goes as far as punching Eugene, to continue to live in her dream world where she is Eugene’s equal in love and life. After he buys her a ring, she even pretends it’s a signal of his utmost devotion to her, yet her childlike innocence bubbles up from under the surface, as though she’s a little girl playing dress-up as a newly married adult woman.

She tries to be someone she’s not, adjusting her appearance to try and keep Eugene in her grasp and ignoring the voice of reason in the back of her head. When she realises that Eugene hasn’t fully moved on from his wife, she finally finds the courage to walk away, and her friendship with Baba triumphs in the end. The pair set sail to London for a new life with new jobs, new living quarters, and new men, offering Kate a glimmer of hope. Her first love was complicated and painful, but writer Edna O’Brien (who adapted the film from her book The Lonely Girl) presents us with a promising end that makes the story feel bittersweet.

The film was Davis’ debut feature, and he would go on to direct the popular Clash of the Titans in 1981. He also reunited with Tushingham and Redgrave for a much less emotive film, 1967’s Smashing Time, about two girls who move to London in search of fame during the swinging ’60s – an alternative ending for Kate and Baba, perhaps? Girl With Green Eyes might have scooped up a Golden Globe, but it has since faded into relative obscurity, overshadowed by other Woodfall films and performances by the likes of Tushingham, Redgrave, and Finch.

Yet, with empathy, complexity, and gentle humour, the film effectively captures the experience of being young and a little naive, wanting to fulfil a dream without the knowledge that, so often, they’re never quite what they seem.

Related Topics