Contentar
Best movie of this year hands down!
Cunninghamolga
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Cem Lamb
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
josh203
What ultimately destroys this movie is its cowardice. It pretends to be risqué -- two teen girls at summer camp competing to see who can lose their virginity first. But ultimately, it's just another Hollywood morality tale, which pretends to be honest because a few of the teens cuss, smoke, drink, and have sex but ends with a cheesy, predictable, conventional message -- that first casual sexual experience will leave a girl miserable -- that could just as well have been delivered by the pope.So I'd say late-night TV viewing material at best, not something that I'd want to buy. Too bad, because with a bit of "Animal House" subversiveness and abandon this movie could have been in-your-face and hysterical. The elements are there, but it's clear that the filmmakers (or, I suspect, the suits at the studio) didn't have the guts to transcend the conventions of the teen exploitation flick. For contemporaneous movies that portrays teens as they really are, see "Over the Edge" or "The Outsiders." Both succeed because they're frank rather than scared.
wes-connors
At "Camp Little Wolf" for girls, two 15-year-olds compete to see who will lose her virginity first. Marlboro smoking Kristy McNichol (as Angel Bright) sets her sights on nearby "Camp Tomahawk" hunk Matt Dillon (as Randy Adams), while rich kid Tatum O'Neal (as Ferris Whitney) targets hairy camp counselor Armand Assante (as Gary Callahan). By the time you get to the food fight, you realize "Little Darlings" meets expectations for being dumb and disappointing. However, stick around to see Ms. McNichol give her role some unexpected depth. She and Mr. Dillon are quite believable. He and the girls are cute.****** Little Darlings (3/21/80) Ronald F. Maxwell ~ Kristy McNichol, Tatum O'Neal, Matt Dillon, Armand Assante
Scarecrow-88
I must admit that the subject matter more than left me a little uneasy, two teenage girls in a bet to determine who would be "deflowered" first while attending summer camp, but Kristy McNichol is so damn good in her role as Angel that the movie, LITTLE DARLINGS earned brownie points with me for just that. Tatum O'Neal has the flashy name on the poster, and seems to be the ideal person to take a crap on, but I think she fulfilled the requirements of the role of pampered princess, with eyes for handsome Armande Asante, one the camp counselors. Matt Dillon is a prick as always, annoyed at Angel's reservations towards putting out, considering himself quite the lothario. I think the intention with him was to show that it's all external toughness, for show, while he's actually a vulnerable kid on the inside. Whatever your sentiments, I found him to be a rude jerk, with a rather crude personality. Anyway, McNichol has these two excellent scenes, so authentic and real, her feelings after having sex, losing her virginity, and finding that this supposedly grand event wasn't so precious or special, and the superb "admission" where she informs Ferris(O'Neal)that she actually did "forfeit her innocence" to Randy(Dillon). There's so much presented to us, the conflicts and inner turmoil, in how McNichol handles Randy's frustrations in her "teasing him" before eventually succumbing to the pressure, that I had to applaud such work from a young actress who seemed to channel the exact feelings many teenage girls face when going through the hormonal stage of adolescence into adulthood. There are summer camp clichés apparent, such as a food fight, infighting between girls, and sex talk. If it's true that O'Neal had her pick of role to play, I'm tickled pink she chose Ferris and McNichol got the part of Angel..Ferris is more surface stereotype while Angel has various levels to her that evolve over course of the film.
HelloTexas11
In his capsule review of 'Little Darlings,' Leonard Maltin writes, "(it's) not quite as sleazy as it sounds, but not very inspiring either," which pretty much sums up reaction to this 'coming of age' film. I tend to mostly agree with that sentiment, though I find it a bit unfair. While certainly no classic, 'Little Darlings' does have its moments as well as two fine performances by Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol. The young actresses had already established themselves as up-and-comers, O'Neal by being the youngest actress to win an Oscar (for 'Paper Moon') while McNichol had garnered favorable notices for her tomboy-ish role in the TV series, 'Family.' In 'Little Darlings,' O'Neal plays Ferris, a precocious teen girl of privilege and McNichol plays, well, a tomboy named Angel with a lot of street smarts who is more sensitive than she lets on. So neither actress is really playing against type here. They do show their acting chops though and they're both better than the material. They go to a girls' summer camp and find themselves in the center of a contest to see which of them can lose her virginity first. The other girls at the camp split into competing teams and place bets. This is where a lot of confusion about the film comes from; it was marketed as sort of a female version of 'Porky's' and this is a wholly inaccurate portrayal of the movie. Much of it could be lifted straight from a Disney flick; there's a predictably lame food fight and an 'oh gosh, aren't we wild' hijacking of a school bus. 'Little Darlings' can't decide if it wants to be a G-rated kids flick or a serious drama about growing up. But it certainly has nothing in common with 'Porky's.' Angel sets her sights on a suitable prospect (Matt Dillon) at the boy's camp across the lake; she seems less worried about having sex, since her floozy mother has described it as "no big deal." Ferris is a bit more ambitious. She targets a camp counselor, Gary (Armand Assante), a grown man no less, and envisions them having a romantic candle-lit dinner before whatever happens when you have sex takes place. In the end, Angel does have an intimate encounter of sorts with 'Randy' (good name) but it turns out to be disappointing and disturbing to her, more so than she envisioned. Ferris, on the other hand, blithely concocts in her mind a night of passion with Gary as she imagines it might be, which she describes in such rapturous terms to the other girls that they all believe she did, in fact, go to bed with him. The moral, no doubt, is that for a 16-year-old girl, fantasizing about sex is much better than actually having it. Or at least it was in this case. Some of the scenes toward the end are so well written and performed, it seems a shame they have to share screen time with the goofy nonsense in the middle. 'Little Darlings' wants to be more than it is, but only occasionally gets it right. It's also a shame that both Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol were unable, for various reasons, to capitalize on their early successes and continue with interesting and successful roles. They showed a lot of promise, and 'Little Darlings' is worth seeing for their performances alone.