Made-for-TV Double Feature

As promised, a made-for-TV double-feature concerning themes of "returning" and "home", compliments of the American Broadcasting Company.

The first film, Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971), is the story of a teenage runaway who willingly returns to her suburban family home after living with her boyfriend on the streets and beaches of Los Angeles. Most notable about this film is its casual yet effective use of flashbacks, voice-overs, scoring, repetition and freeze-frame to "tell" not a linear story but a cyclical one. As with certain ABC MoWs, not much happens plot-wise. Instead we get interior acting, in addition to slow and thoughtful filmmaking.

The second film, Crawlspace (1972), is the story of troubled young man who is "adopted" by an older childless couple after they discover him living in the crawlspace of their exurban Connecticut home. How this adoption comes about -- how it is handled -- is what makes this film so resonant. Despite its title, and its many claustrophobic shots, Crawlspace allows us room to consider where this young man is coming from (is he a Vietnam War vet? a drug casualty? bi-polar? autistic?) and what he, too, might be thinking.