Wish You Were Here

In the early 1950s, sixteen-year-old Lynda Mansell lives with her widowed father Hubert and younger sister Margaret in a small English seaside town. She is feisty, outspoken, and bawdy, shocking peers with her provocative behavior and crude speech. This defiance strains family and social ties, while Hubert runs a barber shop and struggles to discipline his daughter.

Hubert, hoping to tame his daughter's behavior, takes Lynda to a psychiatrist. The effort underscores their adversarial relationship and her resistance to change. Flashbacks reveal Lynda's close bond with her late mother, hinting at vulnerability beneath her swagger.

Lynda encounters Brian on the promenade and a flirtatious romance begins. Her provocative charm and quick wit draw attention, both thrilling and alarming those around her. The seaside setting frames her experiments with love and social boundaries.

She rekindles with Brian and also begins a relationship with Dave, to whom she loses her virginity. This complicates her friendships and heightens the friction with Brian, who remains drawn to her. The episode signals the precarious line she treads between desire and consequence.

Hubert, anxious to shield his daughter from unsuitable suitors, sternly warns Dave off. Lynda remains unaware of her father's intrusion, as she navigates her relationships and growing tension at home. The warning foreshadows the widening rift between father and daughter.

Eric, a middle-aged illegal back-street bookie and Hubert's acquaintance, begins courting Lynda. She initially resists his crude advances, but as her life at home erodes, she becomes more entangled with him. The relationship adds danger and a sense of dependence to her already precarious situation.

Lynda becomes pregnant as her affair with Eric continues. Faced with an illegal abortion option, she realizes she cannot afford one. The pregnancy sharply escalates the social and personal pressures bearing down on her.

Having learned of his daughter's pregnancy, Hubert arrives at the tea room to demand a confrontation with Lynda. He publicly condemns her, speaking of shame that would have saddened his late wife. The moment lays bare the fault lines between them and the town's gaze upon her.

In a bid to defy convention, Lynda climbs onto a table and proclaims that she likes sex, railing against society's reluctance to discuss it. Some customers applaud, but the staff fires her on the spot. The scene crystallizes her status as an outsider and the moral tensions of the era.

Aunt Millie counsels Lynda on abortion or adoption, noting the stigma of unwed motherhood. She provides money to pay for an abortion, presenting a grim but available option. Lynda weighs the social costs against her own future as she tries to decide what to do.

Lynda goes to an abortionist's house but hesitates at the doorway, noticing an old man and a small girl watching her. The moment captures the fear and moral ambiguity surrounding the choice she faces. The scene emphasizes the peril of seeking control over her own body in that era.

Lynda returns home and later alights from a bus at the bus garage where she once worked, carrying a baby and a pram. She passes by her old haunts, including the promenade, and moves toward a climactic moment on a bowling green. There, she pushes the pram through the middle of the field with Eric among the players, signaling a fierce break with her past.

The film closes with Lynda arriving at Hubert's home and embracing her baby, suggesting a fragile reconciliation or a new beginning. The embrace hints at both relief and uncertainty about the future. It marks the end of her tumultuous journey and its social consequences.