Gregory's Two Girls

The good thing about this film is that it stands alone - you don't have to have seen the original. Unfortunately this is also it's biggest drawback. It would have been nice to have included a few of the original characters in the new story and seen how their lives had developed. Sinclair as in the original is excellent and provides the films best comic moments as he attempts to deal with awkward and embarrassing situations but the supporting cast is not as strong as in the original movie. Forsyth is to be congratulated on a brave attempt to move the character on and create an original sequel but the film is ultimately flawed and lacks the warmth of the original

There are many things that can be said about Gregory's Two Girls but i'm afraid not too many of them are good. This film cannot be compared to the original Gregory's girl in any way. This film lacks the charm ,comedy and script that the first film has and the only thing this bore has in common with Gregory's Girl is that it stars the very average John Gordon Sinclair . In this movie he tries to be funny but with a lousy story only manages to look like a poor version of Mr Bean. Another problem about this film is the way the Gregory Character changes as the film goes on. At the start of the film he a such a crush on the school girl that he even has a wet dream about her ( did we have to see the wet patch?)as the film goes on he loses the urge to be with her to the extent that the film has no meaning whatsoever and turns into a stupid , dull story about fighting human rights. Yawn. 5 out of 10.

A shift in outlook is neccesary to enjoy modern British films, one that somehow allows them to be seen in their own right and for their own qualities rather than by the criteria that American films are judged. Britfilm has to try hard to be gritty and finds it hard to make it, but at warmth British films can lord it over their otherwise overwhelming competitor.

This film fails not in its content but only in attaching itself to the predeccesor, so allowing it to be all to easily seen as the work of star and director somewhere near the end of their tethers. It's a couple of decades later, Gregory teaching and this time with two girls on his mind. He teaches at his school railing against human rights abuses. When students he's fired up find abuses in their midst he must face whether he's just all talk.

This is a subversive film in that there's not the usual worldly character of any American movie that you expect to do whatever he does, but a naive man boy who may still put everything on the line for principles. Maybe. It's certainly no protest-by-numbers though, being too warm. Where U.S. film may seem realistic because they're urban and gritty, this and other British films of recent years - those that don't try to match America for visceral thrills - are real because British humour reveals truths.

Forsyth returns to the site of the small-scale comedy that made his now-battered name with this somewhat ambitious but messy and incompletely developed chronicle of a teacher who talks about responsibility and activism but practices only stagnation, until the discovery that a local computer company is manufacturing torture devices for Third World dictatorships - and the galvanizing influence of a pupil about whom he has erotic fantasies - bring him to belated life. It's easy enough to see what Forsyth had in mind, but the movie isn't at all well integrated - the Big Ideas float like patches of oil on a stagnant loch. The two girls of the title are both merely wet dreams of different kinds (the movie attempts to forge a parallel between his political/social and his personal maturity - the latter of which is achieved by having actress Kennedy hang around in desperation until he's ready for her "ripe" charms); the movie gets its biggest laugh from the well-timed use of the word "beaver"; the happy ending is a total cheat; even the setting isn't particularly well evoked...on the whole it's not likely to significantly revive Forsyth's reputation.

John Gordon Sinclair returns as Gregory Underwood. Bill Forsyth returns as writer/director. Gregory is back at his school now as the awkward English teacher fantasizing about his student Frances. Bel Jordan (Maria Doyle Kennedy) is a co-worker who is throwing herself at him without any success. He's a sofa activist. With his talks as inspiration, Frances and Doug investigates Gregory's former schoolmate Fraser Rowan (Dougray Scott) of exporting electronic torture machines.

I love the original which has an innocent charm and the awkward teenage hormones. Gregory is still obsessed with teen girls despite being 20 years later. It is very off-putting. I'm not even complaining about the disappearance of the love story with Susan although that would be a good sequel. I thought the torture machines idea is absolutely ridiculous. Everything seems wrong and flies in the face of the charming original. Then I surrender to the silly sincerity of the torture machines search. It keeps getting sillier and more sincere at the same time with the arrival of Maddy and her arrogant boyfriend. I had to laugh at the turn. The characters grow on me. Eventually I'm going along with the movie but the final ending pissed me off. It is the pettiest of vandalism and I was expecting the torture machine in the back of the truck. This is quite a step down from the original.