Natalie Wood is incredible, and this movie shows her at her best.

All this just because they wouldn’t let two teenagers fuck

My friend Karelle was absolutely right about Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass. It's most definitely an ancestor of Les parapluies de Cherbourg, at least in its structure and final moment. Using its Wordsworth quote to good effect to contrast youth and experience, and daring (as much as it can) to discuss virginity and sex and the teenage anxieties inherent to them, the film is also truthful about parents and kids, and how the former screws up the latter as a matter of course. But it doesn't want us to feel bitter about that, it's just part of life and of everyone's identity. Pat Hingle gives a strong performance as the businessman and patriarch who destroys his own family because he ultimately sees it as an investment. Warren Beatty as his son is a bit of a non-entity for me, while Natalie Wood is unsurprisingly riveting as the lead of the picture. I like how Kazan puts us in her headspace, letting us hear whispers that represent her humiliation that fuel her anxiety and depression and lead to her break. It's a bit old-fashioned in the way it treats some of this material, but by setting in the late 1920s, it's all justified.