Based on a 1928 novella by D. H. Lawrence, published posthumously in 1930, the film follows Yvette Joanna Shimkus, who, with her sister Lucille Harriet Harper, returns from the relative freedom of a French finishing school to their home, a gloomy rectory in the Midlands. The atmosphere at home is heavy with expectation and tradition: a pedantic father, a prim maiden aunt, Aunt Cissie Kay Walsh, and a seemingly tired grandmother who rules the house with a quiet, iron-fisted authority. Yvette’s world is narrowed to a few steady contacts—the quiet Uncle Fred [Norman Bird], the housemaid Mary [Jan Chappell], and her sister Lucille—while the rest of the parish buzzes with social pretense and small ambitions.
From the moment Yvette steps back into the rectory, she feels confined not only by the family’s rigid codes but also by the shallow, earnest circle of local politeness. Among the parish’s bright young things is Leo Wetherall [Jeremy Bulloch], the son of a local industrialist, who finds himself drawn to Yvette’s vitality and restlessness. Their flirtations are light at first, a promenade of social games and expectations, until a chance encounter on a car ride with Leo and his friends leads them to a distant and more primal sight—the gypsy encampment on the outskirts of town, where a dark, enigmatic man [Franco Nero] and his wife [Imogen Hassall] preside over a world that feels both alluring and dangerous to Yvette. The gypsy’s wife speaks of fate and of a voice that comes from water, a line that plants a seed of doubt and curiosity in Yvette about the limits of her life and the power of the unknown.
Back in the rectory, the grown-up world leaks into Yvette’s view through new friendships. Mrs. Fawcett [Honor Blackman], a neighbor with a lover, Major Eastwood [Mark Burns], refuses to submit to conventional propriety, and their audacious defiance draws Yvette’s attention. The couple’s frank, carefree energy feels like a mirage of freedom compared to the stern, orderly life she’s known, and Yvette begins to see a path that might lie beyond her father’s pious expectations. Their influence deepens when Yvette observes how Eastwood’s world looks different—less constrained, more alive—yet her father’s disapproval grows louder, and he even refuses to admit the Eastwoods to a charity concert Yvette has organized for the church.
In a bold act of rebellion, Yvette redirects the money raised at the concert to the gypsies, testing the boundaries of loyalty, duty, and desire. The rector, sensing that something fundamental has shifted in his daughter, issues a stern warning: change your ways or lose the chance to chart your own life. The threat lands with weight, and for a moment, Yvette steps back from the brink, saying farewell to the Eastwoods as she contemplates the consequences of her choices. But curiosity and longing pull at her again as she returns to the gypsy encampment, and one night she glimpses a troubling truth—she discovers the gypsy and Mary engaged in an intimate moment in a nearby barn, a sight that makes the romance of the gypsy world feel suddenly visceral and real, not a fantasy.
The tension comes to a head during Leo’s 21st birthday party. In front of a room full of guests, Yvette confronts Leo and asserts her independence by slapping him, denying him the judgment he assumes he is owed in their relationship. The moment marks a watershed in Yvette’s awakening, as she confronts not just Leo’s privilege but the entire social script that has tried to prescribe her life. The film builds toward a final, liberating resolution brought by the old refrain—the voice of the water—delivering a denouement that reframes Yvette’s journey from rebellion to a newly discovered sense of self, one that blends desire, autonomy, and the complexities of adult choice.
Throughout this intimate drama, the cast threads together a tense tapestry of family duty, class constraints, and female agency. Yvette’s world is a tightly wound circle of family and parish life, punctuated by moments of dangerous allure and unsettling truth. The relationships—between Yvette Joanna Shimkus and Lucille Harriet Harper; between the rector Maurice Denham and his daughter; and between the younger generation and the gypsy world—are drawn with care, hinting at the larger, enduring conflicts of desire versus propriety. The film does not shy away from showing how the figures of authority—the father, the aunt, the grandmother—try to preserve a status quo that’s increasingly difficult to sustain in the face of attraction, curiosity, and the pull of something beyond the familiar.
As the narrative unfolds, the viewer is invited to reflect on how rebellion, once sparked, can illuminate unspoken yearnings and shift the balance of power within a household. The voice of the water motif, introduced by the gypsy and echoed in the final act, serves as a symbolic hinge for Yvette’s evolving sense of self—an invitation to listen to inner currents rather than external dictates. The film’s mood—tender, restrained, and poignantly unsentimental—keeps the focus on character, choice, and the uneasy steps toward adult freedom, rather than on melodrama, while still delivering a richly textured, emotionally resonant experience.
