I want to keep my baby (film)

Synopsis

A 15-year-old girl becomes pregnant by her boyfriend and decides to keep the baby and raise her on her own, instead of initially choosing abortion at the insistence of her boyfriend, or raising the baby at home with her meddling mother.

it was made in 1976.

Confessions of an American girl

Synopsis

Rena and her family travel to the father's prison for the annual family picnic. Things seem to be going just fine, but he eventually becomes abusive and angry. Rena's brother Jay, who is secretly gay, wanders off to tour the prison with another inmate named Buddy. Rena tells her dad that she's pregnant, news which the father does not handle well. When Rena's mother later discovers that her husband is having an affair, they get into a physical fight. When the guards see this they attack him and he stumbles backwards and falls on Rena. Rena rushes to the bathroom, finding that she's bled, and lost the baby. She breaks a picture frame and uses the glass shards to slit her wrists, but Jay saves her just in time.           The movie revolves around a teenage girl named Rena, a dramatically suicidal teenager whose father is serving a long prison sentence. The boy she likes only uses her for sex and other teenage girls tease her relentlessly.

 Madge announces that she is moving the family to Florida. Rena tells her boyfriend about the miscarriage and when he expresses indifference, she causes his prized car to drive into a swimming pool. The end shows the family leaving home for Florida, with Rena's now ex-boyfriend running through the yard screaming at her.

Saved

Saved is a film about a religious girl called Mary who loses her virginity and becomes pregnant. She decides to hide it from her family and friends until she has graduated and before she gives birth. The film follows Mary through her school life and until she gives birth.

links to my play

• All three films follow girls who become pregnant while in school and their decisions on how they will cope with this event in their lives.
• They contain issues about raising a child without the father, being stigmatised for being pregnant and their relationships with others in their lives because of the pregnancy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJjgIKbeTPg

A Taste of Honey

A Taste of Honey is the first play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, written when she was 18. It was initially intended as a novel, but she turned it into a play because she hoped to revitalize British theatre and to address social issues that she felt were not being presented. The play was first premiered at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, on 27 May 1958. The production then transferred to the larger Wyndham's Theatre in the West End on 10 February 1959. The play was adapted into an award-winning film of the same title in 1961.

A Taste of Honey is set in Salford in northwestern England in the 1950s. It tells the story of Jo, a seventeen-year-old working class girl, and her mother, Helen, who is presented as crude and sexually indiscriminate. Helen leaves Jo alone in their new flat after she begins a relationship with Peter, a rich lover who is younger than her. At the same time Jo begins a romantic relationship with Jimmy, a black sailor. He proposes marriage but then goes to sea, leaving Jo pregnant and alone. She finds lodgings with a homosexual acquaintance, Geoffrey, who assumes the role of surrogate father. Helen returns after leaving her lover and the future of Jo's new home is put into question.

A Taste of Honey comments on, and puts into question, class, race, gender and sexual orientation in mid-twentieth century Britain. It became known as a "kitchen sink" play, part of a genre revolutionising British theatre at the time.

It was re broadcast on september 2010, exactly 50 years later on BBC 4.

Links to my play  

the difficulties of a teen pregnancy at a time when children were frowned upon when born out of wedlock. This links to my play as my main character struggles through the stigma of being pregnant from her parents and school friends. Also, the difficulties in having a baby and the father leaves mirrors my play. The daughter in this film follows in her mother's footsteps in that she has a baby in her teenage years as well. This is similar to my plot in which the girl's mother had her young, the only difference being the pregnant teen's mother in my play married the girl's father when she discovered she was pregnant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bcqtd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7LK_-rUfdU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Honey                            

riding in cars with boys

 

Riding in Cars with Boys is a 2001 film based on the autobiography of the same name by Beverly Donofrio, about a woman who overcame difficulties including being a teen mother to earning a master's degree from the span of 1961 to 1986.
Intelligent but naive Beverly Donofrio a teenager when the movie begins in the early 1960s, dreams of becoming a writer. Some years later, at 15, she and her best friend Fay, go to a party and get drunk. Beverly ends up having sex with a friendly stranger named Ray. She finds out she is pregnant and contemplates having an abortion, but cannot bring herself to do so. Ray feels it would be right to propose to Beverly and professes his love for her, she reluctantly replies the same. At her wedding, her best friend Fay announces she is also pregnant and the two girls, although upset, celebrate the fact they will both have little girls together. As the months go by, the girls realize they are missing out on life, like prom and an education. Beverly and Ray welcome a son named Jason, however, when he is born, Beverly refuses to hold him saying she had a girl, not a boy, and when Ray tells her they have a son, she bursts into tears. Beverly is jealous that she had a boy and Fay got to have a baby girl, Amelia.
 Beverly kicks Ray out after he spends all their money on drugs. Jason hates his mother for making Ray leave and Beverly blames Jason for the way her life has turned out. Beverly and Fay soon turn to selling pot in order to make money, however, Jason (who is still mad at his mother) knows what they are doing and tells his grandfather, who is a cop, and he arrests them. Fay's family bail the girls out under the condition that Fay moves away with her brother and Amelia promising to not see Beverly again. In the present day, Beverly and Jason  are driving to visit Ray to allow his permission to release her novel, which talks about his drug use.
Ray and Jason share a moment where Ray knew the best thing for his son was to leave and Jason knows his mom did the right thing as Ray is still an addict and living in a trailer. Ray signs the papers. Jason is also in a relationship with Amelia . However, Beverly doesn't know, and after a confrontation with his mother in which Jason says that it is her who has always ruined his life , she finally admits how proud she is of him and tells him to go to Amelia, leaving her in the middle of nowhere saying she wants him to be happy.
links to my play

The film is about a teenager who gets pregnant at 15. It is a true story and shows real life situations.

The main character in this film is like the character in my play in that she aspires to have a better life and succeed in a career even when she is pregnant.

This links well to my idea as my character will overcome the same difficulties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZtIe3fzL8s

Vera Drake

Vera Drake is a film directed by Mike Leigh.

Synopsis

Vera Drake is tirelessly devoted to her family, looking after her husband and children, her elderly mother, and a sick neighbour.  Although Vera and her family do not live lavishly, their strong family bonds hold them together. Vera works as a house cleaner. However, unbeknownst to her family, she also serves as a backroom abortionist. She receives no money for this, believing her help to be an act of generosity. However, her partner Lily a hard-bitten wheeler-dealer, who also carries on a black-market trade in scarce postwar foodstuffs, charges two guineas (GB£48 in 2005) for arranging the abortions, without Vera's knowledge.

After one of her patients nearly dies, Vera is arrested by the police and taken into custody for questioning.  There, she is granted bail of £50 to re-appear in three weeks time. Her son, Sid, is disgusted by his mother's secret activities and tells his father that he doesn't think that he can forgive her. Vera's newly pregnant sister-in-law feels the same way.

Vera is bailed to appear at the Old Bailey in a few weeks time. None of Vera's employers will give her a character reference. Her solicitor thinks she will receive the minimum sentence of 18 months in jail; the judge eventually sentences her to two and a half years imprisonment. This has a devastating effect on all the people who rely on Vera to visit them.

Reviews

'Leigh takes time to show us the daily lives of all characters, giving them more reality than a Hollywood film would think necessary'.

 '
In a hopelessly polarized debate, Leigh allows us to see real people involved in real situations. The film will keep people on either side of the abortion debates talking'.

Links to my play

This film about backroom abortions links to my radio play as it shows the theme of unwanted and unplanned pregnancies.   

Also, the family involved is working class who are on low income, which show class divides. This links to my play as the main characters family is working class and will be a single parent.

Her lack of money and being a single parent is a theme in my play as it shows the struggles of bringing up a child on a small amount of money when you are not entirely ready for the responsibility of a child.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808589417/video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5L3hGxHumY