Firstborn

Director Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) settles for a movie of pat moralism, a pamphleteer's parable of how drugs destroy families. Read full review

It might have worked if Apted were as adept at creating an emotional atmosphere as he is in his portraiture of the suburban milieu, but too many unshaped scenes and redundant dialogue passages take their toll. Read full review

The movie creates such an urgent situation, and fills it with such interesting characters, that when everything goes wrong at the end I felt more than disappointed, I felt cheated. Read full review

This flawed but interesting Freudian melodrama spends about 70 minutes making points and the last 30 minutes losing them. Read full review

The first half of Firstborn is a first-rate domestic melodrama, faultlessly acted by all concerned, though you may wonder if the interactions would not have been a bit more compelling had the invading force been a bit less obviously, obnoxiously evil. The second half goes over the edge into a Hollywood hell. [26 Oct 1984]