Up the Junction Reviews

Despite the fact that UP THE JUNCTION is based on a successful 1963 book by Nell Dunn that was turned into a television movie in 1965 and eventually Britain's top money-making movie in 1968, it just so happens that the film itself (and the material) isn't all that good. Kendall stars as a young, bored, upper-class girl from Chelsea, who for unexplained reasons decides to abandon her lush lifestyle and move to Battersea, a depressed area of London. There she gets a job working in a candy factory (if jobs are so hard to get, how can a rich girl from Chelsea land one so easily?) and becomes fast friends with sisters Posta and Lipman. Soon Kendall begins dating poor boy Waterman, who hates his existence and wants nothing better than to leave Battersea forever. When it becomes obvious that Waterman wants what Kendall had when she was wealthy, the girl realizes that they will never be compatible. In a subplot, Posta becomes pregnant by her boy friend and is left to visit a sleazy abortionist accompanied by Kendall. After this ordeal, Posta's boy friend agrees to marry her, but he is killed in a motorcycle wreck before the wedding. Kendall and Waterman break up, and he is soon arrested for stealing an expensive car. While the effort to show what life is like in this poverty-stricken area of London is admirable (examining both its tragedy and triumph), the film is deceptive, contrived, and manipulative. Because the main character is a rich girl "slumming" in Battersea, we are given a person from another class to identify with. This in itself is bad enough (as if the characters from Battersea are not sympathetic, vital, or intelligent enough on their own to carry a film), but Kendall's character is given scant motivation for what she does, providing little insight into her character.