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Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol star as teen girls competing at summer camp to see who can lose their virginity first. O’Neal’s character is a rich girl trying to bed the camp’s athletic coach (Armand Assante), while McNichol plays a streetwise gal who starts a fling with a boy (Matt Dillon) from an adjoining camp across the lake. The contest doesn’t end the way either girl wanted, but they manage to become friends along the way.
Little Darlings was made before Porky‘s, which would popularize teen sex comedies and establish a formula for them. It’s a lot less crass than Porky‘s, with next to no nudity or graphic scenes. It’s a much more emotional, character-driven film — and one of few that centers around female characters. While O’Neal is the Oscar-winner (for Paper Moon), it’s McNichol who has the juicier part and gives the film’s best performance. She demonstrates range, rough and combative in some scenes, nervous and vulnerable in others. Her intimate scenes with Matt Dillon (fresh off his debut in Over the Edge) are the film’s most compelling.
Screenwriters Kimi Peck and Dalene Young paint the film’s male supporting characters as sensitively as they do its female stars. Dillon’s character is more than just your average hound dog — he’s the one in the relationship who develops genuine feelings and gets his heart broken. Armand Assante’s character, an adult being pursued by an underage teen, keeps things strictly above boards, while not embarrassing or hurting O’Neal’s feelings — even after her character lies about sleeping with him, threatening his job.
The supporting cast includes Krista Errickson as the alpha mean girl who forces O’Neal and McNichol into the contest. Sex and the City‘s Cynthia Nixon plays a new-agey girl and Jenn Thompson is memorable as a precocious ten-year-old who hangs out with the older girls. A scene in which Thompson attacks a condom machine in a public restroom is a definite highlight. The serene campground setting adds another layer of appeal. Little Darlings may not have all the thrills and raunchy fun of later entries in the sub-genre, but it makes up for it in heart.
Directed by Ron Maxwell (Gettysburg, Gods and Generals).