Bingo Bridesmaids and Braces

In 1976, a film was made about three ordinary Australian girls of fourteen, revealing their very conservative attitudes towards sex, contraception, wedding and their romantic dreams of an ideal husband. Then, to made called 14’s Good, 18’s Better : Diana, the rebellious teenager was about to become a mother as her husband was awaiting the verdict for an assault charge. Kerry was the “modern woman” of the trio and a firm believer in her career. Josie, who was deserted by her mother at twelve, was pregnant at fifteen and at 18 was struggling on a single mother’s pension with two small children. In this third facet, we find the three young women aged 26 and see the changes caused by life, chance, environment, pressures from seociety and individual temperament, juxtaposed with flashbacks of their lives and expectations when they were 14 and 18… thus facing the problems of young women in a materialist society, including unemployment, single motherhood and broken marriages.