The L-Shaped Room

1962 • 126 minutes

About this movie

In an Academy Award nominated performance, Leslie Caron portrays Jane, a young pregnant French girl who moves to a seedy boarding house in London for a new start. Beautiful and withdrawn, Jane slowly gets to know the other residents of the house who, like her, are social outsiders in their own way. As she falls into a relationship with Toby (Tom Bell) a struggling young writer who lives on the first floor, and befriends Johnny (Brock Peters, To Kill a Mockingbird) a black jazz musician, Jane finds a new reason to live. She considers getting an abortion, but is unhappy with this solution. Eventually she comes to like her odd L-Shaped room, but still faces two problems: what to do with her baby, and what to do with Toby. Based on the hugely successful book, written by Lynne Reid Banks, The L-Shaped Room is a British classic, written and directed by Bryan Forbes (Whistle Down the Wind).

Ratings and reviews

Poignant, brilliant.